What Would Have Happened If We Had Never Crossed Paths?

I sometimes wonder if we are destined to cross paths with other people

to discover new parts of ourselves

that we would not have otherwise discovered if we had

stayed content with what we thought we knew ourselves to be.

I sometimes wonder if we are destined to cross paths with other people

at a very specific time in our lives, when we are ready to discover

this new being, when we are ready to watch our lives be overturned

and shaken and rattled until we no longer know who we are anymore.

I sometimes wonder if we are destined to cross paths with other people

when we are ready to have emotions torn from our bodies that

we would have not otherwise been willing to experience, maybe because

we were afraid or because we do not know who we will become if

we let ourselves go.

I sometimes wonder if we are destined to cross paths with other people

when we have a yearning inside of us that pulls us closer

to where we are supposed to be, when we have a gut feeling

that tells us something is going to happen, and we should follow its path.

Everyone says that we meet others by chance,

but I am convinced that I was destined to meet you,

at this particular time

at that particular place

because I think the universe wanted to me to know

what it was like to experience love

and then experience loss.

And every day I wonder what my path would have been like

if we had not crossed paths or if our paths would have stayed closely intertwined for past their time.

Would we have been happy or would we have not recognized unexplainable change?

Would we have been the same people, or would we have somehow stumbled across someone who would have wandered us down a similar path?

I can never say for certain, but for certain I can say: Forever, I have been changed.