Yesterday, June 20, was the birthday of two beautiful young friends of mine who are both, ironically, named Crystal. Not a common name, and I only realized last year that they shared the same birthday. One of the definitions of the word “crystal” is glass of fine quality with a high degree of brilliance. Change the word “glass” to “woman” and it perfectly defines both of these amazing ladies.

Crystal #1 is a brilliant jeweller in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico that I met in Puerto Vallarta many years ago. She is talented, resourceful, passionate and someone whom I admire and love very much. She became my second unofficially “adopted” daughter about fifteen years ago. The distance between us has kept us from actually seeing one another in person very often, but we stay connected and always pick up exactly where we left off.

Crystal #1

Crystal #2 is a wonderful young woman whom I met at a major oil and gas company in Calgary where we were both working. She moved to a smaller city in Alberta to continue her work in a petroleum-related business until a call back to the land took her back to her rural roots in Saskatchewan to fulfill her dream to take over her family’s farm.

Crystal #2

I bring these young women up and the topic of synchronicity because my life seems to be surrounded by so much of it. Perhaps some of us are just more aware of these coincidences than others, or perhaps some of us actually experience these occurrences more frequently.

I was travelling from JFK in New York to Calgary yesterday and met a delightful young woman, Karen, from northern Germany, who has been living and working in Canada as an au pair. We struck up a conversation while waiting for the WestJet check-in to open and shared some great stories and histories. While we were waiting, a couple from Calgary, Candace and Hunter, lined up immediately behind Karen and commented that they had been seated next to her on the flight down from Calgary to JFK, randomly saw her several times in New York, were on the same subway train back to the airport, and then ultimately ended up in line immediately behind her again. As cliché as it may sound, we all agreed that it was a very small world indeed that was, in fact, getting smaller every day.

Hunter, Candace and Karen

My most memorable story of personal synchronicity happened almost 15 years ago with Crystal #1, one of the young women that I introduced earlier. I had been in Mexico City probably seven years earlier where I spent several days with an amazing tour guide by the name of Emilio. Emilio was in the first graduating class of the University of Mexico after the Second World War and had so much knowledge and many extraordinary connections to make my time with him incredibly special. Fast-forward seven years and I was in the busy Zocalo area of Mexico City with Crystal and her friend, Zacbeeh. We had been buying jewelry materials for Crystal and were just on our way back to the Metro to head to Zacbeeh’s for the night. We were walking down the street and I looked and, much to my amazement, saw Emilio on the sidewalk right beside me – after so many years! Before this latest trip, he was the ONLY person that I knew in Mexico City – a city with a population of over 18 million. I remembered him and he remembered me. We embraced and quickly caught up, much to everyone’s amazement.

I’m not a religious person, but do consider myself to be spiritual. When these sorts of occurrences happen, I always feel incredibly blessed and that my angels are telling me that, wherever I am and whatever I’m doing, I’m on the right path.

It really is a small world after all!