Forty years ago this evening I was living at my parents' house in Hartlepool. Sometimes I'd go out on a Friday evening, but more often I wouldn't. I was in two minds about it on this occasion. I was quite inclined not to bother. But after a bit of deliberation, I did. There were a few places where I was likely to meet people I knew.
I strolled into the town centre, and walked into the Park Hotel. Two of my chums from Hartlepool Amateur Computer Club were there, with two girls I didn't know. So I started talking to them. One of the girls was called Sara. She was pleasingly attentive. We exchanged phone numbers and she phoned me the following morning.
A bit less than five years and a couple of degree courses later, we had a joint bank account and a mortgage in Leicestershire. Her parents had moved back to the East Midlands by this time so we looked for jobs in the area before we graduated. I started a career at Rolls-Royce in Derby, Sara went to work in Leicester.
And apart from a seven year holiday in London, I've lived in the East Midlands ever since the day Sara and I drove down the M1 to move into a flat in Leicester in August 1989. I had no idea at the time but at that moment I stepped across the threshold of the Park Hotel I was at the crossroads of my life. If I'd stayed in like I was tempted to, or if I'd gone to some other pub, I would never have moved to the East Midlands. Never would have lived in Derby, or Leicestershire. Wouldn't have had the same career, because I was lured into becoming a sys admin, and later a system engineer by a reorganisation at Rolls-Royce.
I would never have known my wife, whom I met here in Leicestershire in 2006. We live a bit less than six miles away from the house that Sara and I bought thirty-five years ago.
My best guess is that I'd probably still live in the North-East now, all these years later. Maybe I'd be married to someone else. Or divorced. I'd like to think I'd still have done the Computer Science degree, but there's no doubt that my relationship with Sara was a powerful motivation to do that. I might well not have.
Sometimes apparently inconsequential choices can have profound consequences. Perhaps life is full of pivotal moments disguised as near-meaningless.
All too true, I moved with my mum in 1980 to another town (after my father had apssed 3,5 earlier). As it turns out, my wife to be lived only a few hunderd meters from us.
Sort of the "universe looks out for us', except it doesn't.
Nice post.
If I'd been successful post degree at actually getting the job I was geared up for, I'd never have met my wife in 1996, whilst temping at BT.
I constantly think back to the 1980's and 1990's. I often wish I could go back there, Marty McFly style and spend a week or so and be the person I was back then.
I am grateful for everything that life offers...but stuff is just hard now.
There's a sad footnote to this story actually which is another example of an apparently trival choice having massive consequences, by chance.
The other girl in the Park Hotel that night was called Carol, she and Sara were good friends. In December 1989 she was killed on the A19 by a drunk driver coming the other way, who lost control and crossed the central reservation. You have to be very unfortunate indeed to be killed by a head-on collision on a dual carriageway. If she'd set off 10 seconds earlier or later, she'd probably be alive today.
Fate can be so magically wonderful or so truly cruel and tragic.
Ah yes, the "sliding doors" moments, a key theme of Ghost Of A Chance from James's favourite Rush album. ;)
I think this topic may have been discussed on the old site; long story short, the one that has always stayed with me was a phone call from a girl at work outside of work hours to my personal phone that I didn't pick up.
We really, really liked each other on many levels and I know that picking up that call would have resulted in a completely different timeline to the one I've lived since - but I didn't.
My memorable moment in this theme was in the 90s. I was in my early thirties and could sense my last real opportunity to get out of jobs I hated and to get to university was evaporating quickly due to family commitments and financial constraints. However, one day I took a call from a customer. She had the most incredibly cultured English voice and made arrangements to visit the branch to choose one of the items we had discussed. I couldn't wait. I could just sense something big was happening in my life. Long story short, the woman from Wivenhoe did visit on more than one occasion, and after a few nerve wracking conversations I finally asked her out. We were together for nearly four wonderful years until some of the most unnecessary and bizarre circumstances changed the course of our relationship. Perhaps if I'd actually got to university I might have met someone else but I don't think it could gave been amazing as those years, and I agree totally with Matt, these are the Ghost Of A Chance moments in life and that song always conjures up those memories, and the guitar solo's not bad either.