I met a person the other day I haven’t seen for over 10 years and who I thought I’d never see again. Or that she would somehow end up better than me.

Ghazala Khan lived in a boarding house with her father in 2003 when I landed there, still feeling the withdrawal symptoms from my past couple of years with coke, booze and a boyfriend who liked to say he loved you with his fists.

She was a refugee, along with her father, a Pakistani IT engineer who had worked for the U.S. Army in Afghanistan, which the Taliban wasn’t too happy about. Long story.

But I thought …. maybe hoped? Dare I say that? … that whatever happened at least I would never end up as badly as her. Even though I had gone through hell and then some until that point.

I suddenly felt lucky. Blessed even, perverse as it sounds.

I mean, the U.S. was my country, I was in rehab going on recovery and some fanatics had not killed my aunt and mother when they torched my house and gave me third degree burns on both arms and a good chunk of the body.

Who can ever recover from that?

Fast forward 13+ years and I am caught in my own little family prison (I didn’t say that) with special needs children and an unemployment record that is longer than my CV.

I’m nurturing weekly anxiety attacks with a bottle of whiskey even Jon doesn’t know about.

And I am being a bitch to the few friends I have, trying to make them hate me, I guess – as quickly as possible.

And Ghazala now works in the U.S. Department of State?!

What the fuck happened?

And was it … fair?

Of course it was. It’s just me who is being crap with others, because there is so much crap in my life. I was happy for her, when she told me.

And happy for the out-of-the-blue coincidence that I ran into her, when she was visiting her father, who has since relocated to L.A., like two blocks away from where my mom now lives.

So Oceanside cafe, cafe lattes on her and a lot of discussion about life’s vicisitudes and the future:

“Hillary is going to be an excellent president.”

“You have to say that – you work for her.”

“Worked – she is no longer state sec. Don’t you follow the news?”

“I try not to. This election is messing with my head.”

“Don’t worry – Trump will never win in a million years, and if he does it won’t be the end of the world.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Government isn’t just the president. There are lots of grown ups in all of the departments – for better or for worse – who won’t let you just run amok and do all kinds of crazy shit.”

“I wish I was that sure. Jon will vote for him, you know.”

“Your husband has voted GOP for as long as you have known each other, you said. Forget about it. It won’t make a difference.”

“I guess so. But you have. And … I am glad. I was really worried about you when I left Fremont.”

“We stayed there like another year, but then I got into college and things started rolling. You know, by some freak coincidence the head of the FAFSA dep that took my grant application had lived in Kabul in the same house we rented after Father got the U.S. Army contract. 20 years previously … “

“Serendipity sometimes can make you a whole new life, huh?”

“Yes. If you believe in it.”

“So you are saying happy coincidences work like matters of faith?”

“They are the only matters of faith, Carrie.”

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Song: Genesis – “Second Home by the Sea”

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Cover Photo by Vince Fleming on Unsplash

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