I am convinced of this: that the universe, while generally a well-functioning, smoothly oiled engine, has, at its controls, a group of monkeys who delight in picking out someone at random and resetting the clocks that run certain areas of their lives. The effect of this is to dash to bits any semblance of timing in certain circumstances for that person – not every arena, of course, as this would cause the person to go crazy as they moved through time, forever just out of sync with the rest of the world. No, I believe it’s done just to slightly throw off that person so that What Might Have Been is tossed into their faces as much as possible. Think of anything in life. The relationship that does not bloom because the other party became involved with someone “Just recently, and s/he’s a good match, but if I’d met you first, we surely would have gotten together,” they say, and clearly they mean it. The job that isn’t won because the candidate interviewed several days prior fit the bill and was offered the job. “But,” they say, and clearly they mean it, “if we had been able to interview you first, we’d have offered it to you instead.” The comeback that dies on the lips because the clever retort does not come to mind until hours or days later. “But,” they say, when others are told about the incident, and clearly they mean it, “that would have been a good one and would have put someone in their place.”

Examples of this bad timing abound, and devious monkeys are as good an explanation as the serendipitous nature of life. It’s difficult not to be just a little bitter and angry about these things from an emotional standpoint, while at the same time understanding intellectually that we don’t all move along the same strand. It’s where the real battle lies.