Synchronicities are the building blocks or signposts to understanding your personal (inner) singularity.
Why do I say that? Well, if our inner singularity is a convergence point of the experiences and ideas we’ve encountered throughout life, a place where all those pieces begin to come together to form who we are becoming, then something new, and perhaps more beautiful, can emerge from those intersection points.
Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist Carl Jung described synchronicities as meaningful coincidences between two or more events connected by meaning.
Maybe synchronicities are the guiding breadcrumbs that help us find our way there along this yellow brick road of life.
I thought I would share a few of mine on this Substack as I track my journey with you (or at least a few of you), and maybe in the comments you can tell me if this or something similar has happened to you before.
I have many “syncs,” but here is a recent but vulnerable one.
Hollywood Studio Lots
Last February in LA, I met up with a friend who’s a producer. When we get together, we usually meet at his workplace studio lot, as our friendship started off more as business than anything else. He would tour me around the studio, telling me stories about how The Beatles and Michael Jackson stood in the exact spot I was standing.
It's utterly mesmerizing to stand in places that shaped history.
Walking in the footsteps of The Three Stooges or even some of the most talented actors during the black-and-white and golden eras of film and TV makes you feel like you’re in a time machine, but your Hollywood producer friend is the captain.
But this time it was different.
Instead of meeting on the lot and talking shop, he asked me to drinks at 6:30 p.m. at The Bourbon Room, a vibrant haunt with an edgy atmosphere overlooking the lights of Hollywood Blvd., right down the street from the studio. So I thought nothing of it.
As I made my way down Hollywood Blvd., I people-watched as I walked down the star-studded sidewalk: rock band Queen, actress Kyra Sedgwick, and then actor Kevin Bacon. I stopped and looked up. “Oh, I’m here!”
A chain covered the front door, and the large metal door was securely locked.
The bar was closed.
I thought, “Well, that’s odd,” scratching my head.
I messaged my friend and said, “Did you know The Bourbon Room is permanently closed?”
No message back.
I assumed he was busy, so, like a respectable woman, I walked myself down to the vinyl store to wait to hear back.
Ring, ring. My phone goes off.
“It’s closed?!” he says.
“It is! I proclaim. It’s all good, I’m just down the road looking at vinyl.”
He then suggests we go to the Scum and Villainy Cantina: an intergalactic bar right across the street.
I say, “Star Wars Cantina!! Yes!”
Being a UFO nerd and a Star Wars fan, how could a girl say no?!
We finally meet up at the Cantina.
We pull up a seat at the bar. I order an off-planet cocktail of some sort, and it comes out looking like it's going to launch itself into space (smoke with lights and all), and from there on for a good hour, we talk about our love for animals. Okay, I know. This sounds super corny! But we do. How can you not like someone who’s owned a pig before? 🙂 😂 And multiple other animals? Side note: my life goal is to retire one day, create an art studio in the back of my house, and have a tiny hobby farm with some fuzzy chickens. Sounds great, right?
As my friend and I are catching up about anything life- and work-related, he slowly slips in that he’s single.
I say, “Hold on, you’re single?”
He says, “Yes.”
Suddenly, the tone of this get-together switches quickly.
We're both 42, so I stop and think. Oh. I’ve never seen this person in that light before. My monkey brain clicks over from friend to possibility.
Now, hear me out. I never mix business with pleasure, but at the age of 42, when you find someone you click with, you have to give it a try, right? I don’t want to be single for the rest of my life!
The conversation quickly shifts from animal hobby farms to middle-aged, single banter.
You’re probably wondering, where is this story going? I’m getting there, trust me.
It’s close to midnight at this point, and he looks at his watch and goes, “OMG, I have to get out of here!” I’m a little shocked and thrown off and say, “Oh, okay!” He grabs his jacket, and we are both out the door. I swear the people at the Cantina watched an animated smoke cloud trail develop behind the two of us as we left.
He quickly says goodnight. I think to myself, “Weird,” and we call it a night.
The next day, I text him that I had a wonderful time and that we should get together again. He agrees. But it doesn’t end up happening before I leave back to Toronto.
LA Summer Nights
Now fast-forward to this summer. I head back to LA again to see my friends and do a little TV stuff in San Diego.
I decided, why not ring my producer friend up? Right?! A single girl’s gotta try, right? 😏
We end up meeting up for dinner again, but this time the place is NOT closed, and we go to The Smoke House, right across the street from the Warner Studios lot.
Again, we talk about Muppets, UFOs, Hollywood, our personal lives, and everything else besides business. At one point, the server came around to give us a heads-up that the restaurant was closing in 20 minutes. We seemed not to listen and kept talking. Finally, the server came up and said, “I’ve given you both an extra 30 minutes, but you have to go.” We agree. Settle up the bill (he was a gentleman, and he paid for it).
We are going to our cars, and suddenly I feel him go right back into business mode. I think, “What was that?!”
He says goodbye politely, and I pop into my car after the valet opens the door.
What was that “corporate” goodbye all about? Surprise, he didn’t shake my hand after, too, and say, “Well, good doing business with you!”
As I drive away, I finally really realize, “I like this guy… Oh crap!” But is it mutual?
Ghost GPS
So here’s where it really gets interesting.
I’m staying with my friends Molly and Max, who live in a beautiful French home from the 1900s in Koreatown. Stunning, really. I copy and paste her address into my iPhone address book under her name, then pop it into the GPS. I’ve been to LA and lived there on and off for over five years now, but God help me, I still need a GPS in this behemoth of a city.
As I’ve been driving along for the past 15 minutes, I stop and look around, and I think, “Why have I found myself on Hollywood Blvd.?”
I assume the GPS is taking me on the scenic route.
But no.
The GPS says, “You have arrived.”
I looked up and, to my utter astonishment, I’m back at The Bourbon Room!! The bar that my friend asked me to go to when we first met up after work. But it was permanently closed.
Why the hell would my GPS do that?!
Finding the correct address, I shake my head, and the entire way back to Molly’s and Max’s, I can’t shake the feeling it means something. BUT WHAT?
Now, let’s remember: the last time I put that address in my phone was February of this year, and now it’s August, and the address isn't saved in my Google Maps!
Did my subconscious take me here? But again, why?
Rejection, But Make It 40+
As my summer trip comes to an end, I decide to muster up all the guts I have and tell my friend how I feel.
I text him, “I realized maybe my intentions aren’t that obvious.
I like you.
The thing is, I’m having a hard time reading yours. (Insert awkward millennial, lol.)
I don’t generally mix business with different intentions, but I’m 42, and if I feel like I connect with someone, well, I should try at least. Right?
If you want to keep it all business, I can respect that and do that with no weird moments after. I’m a grown-up; I can handle rejection.
If not, I’d like to get to know you as a person more.”
Cute, right?
Silent for three days. Nothing. *Insert cricket sound. 😐
I think to myself, Wow, did I really blow it? Talk about ghost of the century! Or did something happen? I quickly message him on Instagram to find out he lost his phone! (I do believe him when he said it. He’s not one to lie.)
I then muster up the courage to text him what I wrote before, but this time with a lump in my throat.
He messages me back.
Rejection. But a soft one.
He tells me he loves spending time with me, but he’s still in the fallout phase from a past relationship and wants to focus on work now because it motivates him. Says he’s 42 as well and doesn’t want to waste a person's time, as he’s going through his own odyssey of life and building a company. But asks to say friends.
I get it.
I appreciate the response. It's honest, it's mature, and, well, he communicated.
But…
My little Muppet heart breaks.
In the end, we are friends, and friends we shall stay for now, and maybe forever.
UP and Away
I fly back home, and as I’m on the UP train going back to Toronto, I think to myself.
Why didn’t I see the signs before? Why didn’t the smoke trail high-tailing it out of the Cantina register?
And if anything, the second night we went out, the GPS took me back to the original place we were supposed to have drinks, but it was closed.
Then it hit me. I should have spotted the “sync”: NOT OPEN.
Call it fate, call it a guide, call it a synchronicity, but something or someone that night made me drive back to The Bourbon Room to tell me not to waste my time anymore, as he “WASN’T OPEN FOR BUSINESS.”
Dude must be out of his mind to pass up a chance to date a cool happening lady like you Chrissy...
I am wondering if I have missed certain things in life. That the universe was trying to tell me something but I am stubbornly missing the message. I didn't experience anything like this recently but I am starting to realize that I always put myself as the reason something didn't work and coming to the realization that I can do everything right but maybe something wasn't meant to be and I shouldn't punish myself.