Kindred Spirits

Once in awhile, we meet someone who we feel we have known for ages within minutes of talking to them. I have only experienced this a couple of times in my life, but I had another experience with it while I was in Helena for my work conferences.

The last night of the conference, my boss took a coworker and I out to dinner at the Brewhouse in Helena. She also invited another friend of hers who lives halfway across the state. He showed up right after the appetizer and man, he was a talker! This guy Dan is probably in his late 50's early 60's. The minute he sat down and started talking, I was amazed! This guy told such a good story and I swear I could listen to him tell stories all night!

His family is from Ireland, and so is mine. One of his best friends happened to be my middle school counselor. He was one of the leaders at a summer camp I went to in 8th grade. He used to work for the same company that I did, and has worked with some of the same clients that I did when I was fresh out of college several years ago. One of his other best friends is my old boss.

I find it fascinating that our paths had crossed several times, we knew several of the same people all over the state of Montana and had never met each other.

The group of us ended up listening to him tell stories for several more hours; about working with the high security people in Montana State Prison, about his family in Ireland, his wife, family and workplace. We were at the restaurant for a total of 4 hours! The time flew by so fast just listening to his fascinating memories.

I left there knowing that this older man, who could be my grandfather, was a kindred spirit. He's not going to be the kind that I keep in touch with weekly, or even monthly. I may only see him once a year at these annual conferences. We had so much in common between our families and work, I felt so strongly that he was a kindred spirit. I guess I thought it was a little odd at first, because when I had these experiences in the past, it was with someone my own age, and usually a female. Then we became BFF's and still talk. This one was strange and strikingly different, since he was an older man.

If none of you have ever felt this, I hope that you get to experience it unexpectedly, out of the blue like I did. It's an amazing experience that is hard to put down in words.

And with that, Happy Saturday!!!