Dear Ordainer of Weddings and Funerals. Would we still have tried as hard? Perhaps we would have given it more effort.

Please stand on that long line over there. That’s the one that says “Weddings and Funerals only.” You don’t see it? It’s the longest line in the room. The shared celebrations and the pool your sorrows with tones of mandatory invites and show ups.

The terms Kismet, Destiny and Beshart offer the concept of “the meant to be’s.” How much does luck or chance factor into who we go the distance with? We were raised believing our family of origin and blood relatives are the people who will be our first and forever friends. Does forever mean until the holiday meal is over or when someone moves off the block?

Early on we come to learn Holiday Anxiety can exist all year long .The dread of the were they really meant to be’s too often become the “do we have to’s?”

As social media has connected us to our past, we have become voyeurs in the lives of the people we met through our “chance” encounters. Our Book of Life.  Reunions, cousin clubs and catch up events offer the second time around opportunities. If we try hard can we champion our first time around defeats and become the laureate of second chances?

The trepidation of “will we be understood” and the “will they like us feelings” enter the room before we do. Phew, we got that over with is the relief emotion as we feel the  rapprochement went really well.

So we learn back to the future isn’t always in the canasta cards. Equally,  the surprise of the well blended double date shows up.  We walk away, look at one another and think yes, a take two would be very nice.

On Thursday the pharmacist at Duane Reade referred to the type of flu shot he was administering to us as the “upper classman” strain. We thought what a gentle way of saying senior discounts accepted.

So as a member of that category we got the shot, took our senior day discount on our over the counter Nexium and went home to pack for our snowbird winter in Florida.

My take away is, we can dwell on missed opportunities and bemoan our fate about family members who have become strangers. Or, we can knowingly look across the table, perhaps the seat next to us at the movies and believe those are our “meant to be’s. Make it a reach out to someone you love day. I just did.