Coincidences do not exist

Definition of coincidence according to WordReference: “a remarkable concurrence of events or circumstances without apparent causal connection”.

I never believed in coincidences, as I try to give a rational explanation to everything, but apparently such a definition would fit perfectly what happened to me in the afternoon.

I was on my way home, after an interview for an internship in West Georgia Street, when I noticed a girl walking the opposite way looking vaguely familiar. She may have thought the same, as she gave me a look and a smile.

We turned around simultaneously and… surprise: it came out we knew each other.

She’s a French girl who was my colleague in Ireland, working in my same department.

I had no idea she was in Canada since we lost any contact maybe 4 years ago. To meet again in Vancouver it was as probable as to win the lottery.

She’s settled down here now, with permanent residence and a baby almost ready to be born.

She told me she came to Canada with her partner because it was her dream. Totally understandable, given that many people have a romantic vision of Canada as the land of the big open spaces, wild nature, bears and beavers, and so on. And this is a valid reason to attract people.

But then I started thinking on the number of Italians I met here so far, with less romantic, probably more practical and surely more important reasons to travel so far from home: the hope for a better future.

As economically Europe is literally going down, more and more people come to Vancouver with the not so secret hope to remain here with a stable job. An Italian I’m going to take the place of at work said it right: “We are refugees”. Yes, in some way we are refugees, victims not of an ethnic conflict like the ones you hear about on the news coming from distant lands, but rather victims of an economic war we didn’t want, we cannot fight, and we can only flee from.

As this war is going to have more and more losers, it might actually happen again to find some old new face on the streets of Vancouver. Maybe I am right: coincidences do not exist.