“You were late. I saw you. And then I said to my two friends ‘That girl is cute…’”

I was late to that welcome student event on the first day of the semester. It was meant for the orientation of the exchange students, who were going to stay at the university for a year. Twenty years ago.

I was lost in the campus. Unable to find my way, as usual. I arrived at the auditorium ten minutes late, where the event was taking place, out of breath. I walked in, lifted my head up to see a place to sit and saw almost a hundred faces staring at me. I still feel so intensely how I felt at that moment. I wished I could dissolve into thin air, sink in the floor…God, I was so embarrassed.

“You were late. I saw you”

That was the moment when Göran got to know of my existence in the world. And informed his two good friends, also exchange students, about it.

Two years later we were married. Ten years later we were divorced.

That memory of Göran confiding in me when we later started to date – how I had drawn his attention, puts a smile on my face now. Warms my heart. I am not sad, I am happy. It was beautiful. We were kids. We still are.

I had forgotten about it. A paragraph in a book I am reading currently brought it back to me. Thankfully.

I was late on that day at that moment and my life took a turn. Had I not been late, maybe it would have taken another turn. May be not…I will never know. That’s the beauty of it.

Life is unfolding in the moments, which put a smile on your face later.