Coincidence? or Fate?

Life has taken an unexpected turn these last few months, but for the first time since I can remember it's a good turn.

Several years ago my husband and I moved cross country together for the first time in our 10+ year relationship/marriage and - to put it mildly - it was a total fiasco. Before I get into the specifics, I first need to provide some background....

In August 2019 a few days before her birthday, my husband's "brother from another mother" (as he called her and she called herself despite being female) passed away after her battle with cancer and sepsis. She was first diagnosed in April and passed in August, so to say it was traumatic is putting it lightly. After her death, my husband was never the same. He withdrew from everyone around with, including me. He threw himself into work as a corrections officer until I made a wisecrack about moving somewhere else to get a fresh start. Little did I know how one smartass comment would lead to so much turmoil.

So we did - we picked a place we'd only visited for a weekend to go to a hockey game. I didn't want to go but he wasn't listening.... to anyone. I still don't know why I went with him, I'm strong willed and independent enough that I could (and would) have survived without him. He's my person, I guess, and my person was hurting. I knew I couldn't fix it or make it better, but I was determined to at least be there whether he saw me or not.

I learned a lot about myself during this time and received a couple of new (to me) mental health diagnoses: anxiety and ADHD. I also learned hoe multifaceted and malleable grief was and is. I was grieving and hard.... grieving the loss of my tribe.... grieving the loss of my stuff.... grieving the life I once had before death visited us.... grieving the number of times I was told I was too much, too lazy, too talkative, too loud, too <insert adjective here>. Grief is powerful and tricky. My husband received some diagnoses of his own as well that were just as earth shattering in their own way (bipolar and PTSD).

In total, this experiment lasted a total of 8 months. 8 months that were so action packed and chaotic that neither one of us really remember much of it. Once we moved back our credit was in the toilet, we had no money, and we were on the brink of a divorce. We didn't, obviously, but it was a very real possibility at the time. Several years have passed and I'm on my second job change within the time. With the second job change came another cross country move.....

This time, I was the one calling the shots and we were not going to end up in the same situation we were before. For starters, my salary is enough that we only need the one income to survive; removing a lot of pressure from my husband (that's a whole other story better left for another time). We're here, getting settled, and things are moving smoothly for the first time in our adult lives. We feel better, we're eating better, we're managing our collective mental health better, everything about us is so much better. Which brings me to the point of this lengthy ramble... my catch phrase with this move has been "what a coincidence". Freakish similarities between the first move that was a monumental failure and this move that, so far, seems to be a monumental success.

Our building numbers in both locations contained/contain a 5.

Our street names in both locations contained/contain the word 'village'.

Both locations have communal laundry rooms (common in the areas of which we're living, but not at all common where we came from).

And this last one takes the cake: There's a proper name street a couple blocks over from our current location that matches the name of my husband's best friend who passed in 2019. Same spelling and everything, as if she's here with us telling us it's okay.

Apart from the above, everything else related to this move has been freakishly smooth. No, things haven't worked exactly as we thought it would or even planned, but everything did still work out in a positive way. I've met the most amazing people and have never felt more 'normal' in my entire life (except for the short time I spent up here as a teenager). Nowhere else have we ever felt this invisible. Nowhere else have we truly been left alone by strangers. Nowhere else have we ever felt less like a spectacle. (As an LGBTQIA+ couple in the Midwest, we've had our fair share of stares, terrified faces, refused service, moments of questionable safety, etc). But not here.... here, nobody cares what we look like (or don't look like). Nobody cares about the brand of clothing we're wearing or not wearing. Nobody cares about the car we do or do not drive; heck - most of the time we don't even need the car that we have.

So you tell me - coincidence? or fate? Was everything we've ever been through the worlds worst and longest running failed experiment to prepare us for this moment? So we could truly appreciate the good that we have right here, right now? Or - does none of that matter and we're just 'lucky' this time was a total failure.

(For the record: nothing that any reader comments will change my mindset. Things are finally going in our favor and I intend to enjoy the ride for as long as it lasts. Life is too short to worry about the past or far into the future.)