Totally Unrelated Stories (Kinda) Held Together By Fate... or God or Luck or Science or Whatever

I've been making a lot of jokes lately about Christmas Miracles. The things we want for Christmas, the things we wish for. What it means and all that's wrapped up in beliefs and faith and fate.

You know, light thinking. How wonderful it would be to think that God had a part in things, right? Or that maybe not everything, but that some things happen for a reason.

Seems like some things happen and you're like, 'Damn, that just sucks,' no two ways about it. And other times you run into someone around a corner at a certain spot and next thing you know you're best friends or married or whatever and you're like, 'Wow. That was... something.'

There are and have been people in my life who I can't help but think they came along at exactly the right time. And there are things I've wished for that later I think, 'Whew, thank God you don't always get what you wish for.'

But then, sometimes you do. And it's exactly and truly what you need and what is most important.

So a friend of mine has finished her last bout of chemo and has a welcome, holiday respite before she hits radiation. She was most excited about being able to taste food again for Christmas. What's more, there are no signs of the tumors. But she wonders when they'll call and say, "oops, wrong results."

A Christmas miracle. A miracle of medicine. Blind luck. Who cares. I'll take it.

When someone asks me if I believe in fate or God or if things happen for a reason I always say something vague like, 'I'm not against the idea.' But in my head I totally don't believe it. You hope for the best, pray, wish on falling stars, whatever... but it's a roll of the dice.

Then you think about people just wanting to taste food for Christmas... or the love story I heard from my friend Natalie recently.

She and her now-husband dated for five years, broke-up, lived in separate states and had no contact. Two years later they reconnected at a Coldplay concert during the song Fix You, when he walked up to her, picked her up, spun her around and told her he was miserable without her. On the lawn. At Riverbend.

I know, awesome. So they were back together, 'let's do this,' happily ever after, right? Umm, no.

They didn't get back together (but he picked you up and spun you around at the Coldplay concert!) because she was dating a guy in Chicago (a doctor, no less) and she just wasn't "sure." So she went back to Chicago, months of silence followed and then she came home for Christmas and saw him again. Then finally - finally! - after all that, they started dating again.

It took ten years but last month they got married on a beach in Cabo. She walked down the aisle to Fix You.

Snif, snif. Is it is dusty in here?!

So I've been thinking about these little things that add up to big things as I make jokes about 'Christmas miracles.' For the last three nights I've been lying awake until 2 a.m. unable to fall asleep, and inevitably I start thinking about myself and the leaps of faith I've taken - jobs, relationships, school, life, all of it - and how I've managed to land on my feet all the better off for it, the whole time thinking, 'Nah, it wasn't fated. I made this happen.' And I think that's true.

But then sometimes, right when I'm about to fall asleep I think of all the things that snapped into place, all the small things that led to this and that and all the circumstances and moments that came together to form the patchwork of this sublime life and I think, "Holy crap, Daugherty, you better thank your lucky stars or God or something cause you sure as hell had no control over it and who'd have have thought you'd have it so good... certainly not you!"

Then I fall asleep and wake up totally skeptical again.

So, you know, the unbearable lightness of being and all that. Here's hoping for Christmas miracles for all of you.