“So, how’d you two meet?” It’s a standard question couples get all the time. Whenever my wife and I get this question, we look at each other for a brief second and then realize there’s no getting out of telling the story, so I usually start first.
“We met in baggage claim at LAX airport.”
And from there, we find ourselves unfolding a cosmic love story that sounds like it was straight out of a Nicholas Sparks novel.
So Far Apart
Mandy had just finished her final exams while attending law school in New Zealand. Her studies — and a recent breakup — left her drained. And she decided, rather spontaneously, to take a trip to New York and Los Angeles to clear her head.
Although she was born in Europe, lived in New Zealand, and had traveled to many other parts of the world, she’d never been to the states.
My life was much less exotic.
I grew up in Florida and North Carolina but had moved out to Los Angeles some time ago. I had been married for a few years when I was young and ill-prepared, but that fizzled out fast.
I’d spent most of my adult life building a business and had been chronically single, except for a few close calls and near misses.
Picture Perfect
I needed to go to NYC to do a lecture at a conference. And I’d invited my parents to come along with me. They lived in the Carolinas but rarely traveled or allowed themselves the indulgence of a vacation.
However, I’d remembered them telling me about this one memorable trip they took to NYC in the 1960s, where they got to stay at the legendary Waldorf Astoria Hotel on Park Avenue.
So as a surprise for their upcoming anniversary, I decided to fly them to NYC and put them up in one of the fancier rooms the Waldorf had for special occasions.
The three of us spent the next few days wandering around Manhattan, savoring the chewy flavor of real bagels and absorbing the addictive pulse of the city.
But as stimulating as NYC was, what stood out to me was the love my parents still had for each other after 60+ years.
My parents never had much money, success, or the ability to travel the world. But what they did have was an abundance of love for each other.
And while I’d traveled all over the globe and achieved a small level of success in life, I was still a hopeless romantic living a single-serving life.
Reality Sets In
The fact I’d been single for so long perplexed everyone around me. But no one was more baffled by this affliction than me.
I’d assumed I’d be the first person in my community to settle down, live in a red brick house and have two kids that my wife and I would shuttle around in a big SUV to soccer games and swim practice.
But that’s not how my life turned out.
Instead, I had a two-seater sports car, an empty fridge, and no family to come home to at the end of the day.
Although I kept trying to stay active in the dating game, my optimal years as an eligible bachelor had long passed me. And like my hair, my options seemed to be thinning out every year.
However, spending time with my parents in NYC had a profound effect on me.
Watching them be together made me reflect on the meaning of life and what I’d been chasing.
I was guilty of making fun of the “institution of marriage” at times. Yet deep down inside, being in love and having a family is what I secretly wanted out of life more than anything.
But love had evaded me at every turn.
Although I was famous for never quitting on anything I set my mind to achieve, the possibility I might never find love sunk into me. I was tired of breaking my own heart every day. And I was exhausted from trying to figure out what’s wrong with me and why I’m not “lovable.”
As the night fell in NYC, I decided to stop searching for love. This decision was not sudden but had been building in me for some time. I no longer wanted to chase a dream that forever eluded me.
And I’d had enough of the dating/hoping game.
I wasn’t giving up out of anger, sadness, or even bitterness. I embraced this reality with acceptance. I wanted to get on with living my life. I didn’t want to waste any more of my limited time yearning for something that may not be possible for me to achieve for whatever reason — my age, looks, personality, hair, height, or generational gap.
A New Day
I woke up early the next morning in the Waldorf with a great sense of peace and resolution. My parents and I smeared the last round of heavenly bagels into our mouths, and headed to the airport.
Right before I was about to board the flight from NYC to L.A., my mom said,
“I know you’ve given up on love, son…but love is not something you find.
“Love is something that finds you — on its own time.”
“Don’t torture yourself trying to make it happen. Instead, just let love happen.”
As our plane pushed through the choppy clouds, I figured it would just be another routine flight back to L.A. But I had no idea that my life on the other end of that 5-hour flight was about to make a hard right turn.
Better buckle up!
* * *
As I walked down the airport concourse at LAX and turned right to approach the baggage claim area, I saw this lady from behind. She was standing in front of the luggage carousel, but no bags were coming out yet. Nor were there any other people around.
It was just her back.
But I felt something in my gut that made me pause for a second. I wasn’t lusting. And it wasn’t even the undying hope of a single guy wishing to find his “magic other.”
Instead, it was a feeling that was familiar, yet cosmic.
But my rational mind had no interest in getting back into the “finding love” mode again. Nor did I want to risk getting rejected by someone who might think I was hitting on them.
So as I approached the baggage conveyor belt, I intentionally stood to the left of this lady — about 6 feet away.
Ordinarily, that space between us would have been filled up immediately by two to three other anxious passengers waiting to grab their luggage. But much to my surprise, no one stepped in between us.
As she and I stood there in silence for about 12 minutes, scrolling through our phones, we both got concerned that perhaps we were at the wrong baggage claim area. There were at least 200 other people on that flight from NYC to LAX, and of course, there had to be other passengers with bags to pick up, but it was just us.
I rechecked the display board, and it had our correct flight number on it.
After five more minutes went by, she said,
“Excuse me,” in the most delightful Kiwi accent I’d ever heard.
I turned to see her face for the first time and caught her eyes. She was so beautiful it left me speechless.
I realized she was way out of my league, but I also didn’t want to be rude, so I said, “Hi.”
She asked me if I was on the same flight from NYC to LAX and if this was the right baggage claim area. I informed her it was, and then she arched her body back and pulled her thick, curly hair off her shoulders and tied those dangles into a ponytail as if to say, “Good, I can relax now.”
We then made polite small talk about the flight, weather, and how long it was taking for our bags to come out.
She told me it was her first time in L.A. and asked if I had any good recommendations of places to see. As a retail and food design architect, I always had a great list of must-see places. I described a few of them to her that she said sounded interesting.
And then my brain said,
“Ok, Kev, let’s leave it at that. You’ve said enough…now wrap it up.”
But then we ended up talking a bit more, and quickly got into a short but deep discussion about why I decided to become an architect and why she was studying law — when her real passion was art and fashion.
The ease with which we slipped into this personal conversation was so fast, effortless and familiar — as if we’d known each other for ten years.
It would’ve been easy for me to mistake her kindness for something more, but I knew better than that. I had no intention of trying to impress or pursue this beautiful lady in any way.
Besides, I figured she must already have an over-accomplished boyfriend or fiancé that probably graduated from Harvard or Oxford, is 6′-3″, and looks like one of the Winklevoss twins.
And Now The End Is Near
As the luggage slowly made its way down the carousel, I knew our time was about to end.
In some strange way, I was glad it was almost over because I wasn’t sure I could handle being in the presence of this much glorious radiance any longer.
As my bag approached, one of the voices in my head started pleading with me to “Ask for her number!”
“Get something — anything — so you can stay in contact with this person!”
But my reserved, more gentlemanly side reminded me that far too many women traveling alone get hit on by guys that mistake a girl’s friendliness as an invitation to ask for more. I had too much respect for this lady to make her feel uncomfortable. And I wouldn’t have dared put her in the awkward position of having to respond to that type of request.
So I didn’t ask for anything.
As we grabbed our bags and said our cordial goodbyes, I reached into my coat and gave her my business card.
“If you need the name of a good place to eat, drop me an email or text, and I’ll shoot you some options.”
And with that, it was all over.
As I headed to my Uber, part of my brain was having a meltdown. “Ask for her digits!” But if it was meant to be, I figured it would happen on its own.
“Love will find me, right, mom?” I said sarcastically to myself.
But I could already hear the other voice in my head berating me,
“You idiot! How in the world would you let her walk away like this? You will never see this person again, and you have no way to contact her?”
“L.A. is a massive city with over 9 million people — and she lives in New Zealand for heaven’s sake — which makes the math, odds, and probability of you ever bumping into each other again statistically impossible.”
I was halfway to the curb, and my brain made one last desperate plea,
“Turn around! Go back in and ask for some way to reach her!
I thought about it for a second, but I heard a much deeper, wiser, and calmer voice inside in my gut that said,
“Don’t worry…You will know this person in your life.”
My rational mind couldn’t fathom how that could ever happen, but it was just one of those rare signals you get in life when you know something is right.
* * *
Three days went by, and I didn’t hear from her — not that I expected to. But still, I was kicking my Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist) butt all day long, and blaming the idealistic voice in my head for letting the “one” person I was most fascinated with in the world walk out of my life forever.
But then, as if by a miracle, I got a text right in the middle of a client meeting.
“It’s her!” I whispered to one my colleagues.
“Who? he said.
“The girl with the beautiful back!” I replied.
She asked me for the name of that Italian restaurant I recommended in Beverly Hills.
(I later found out that she lost my business card for a few days, but then it happened to fall out of a jacket pocket onto the floor of her hotel room.)
I excused myself from the meeting and went to hide out in the bathroom. I then texted her back with the name and address of the restaurant she asked for, plus a few other good restaurant recommendations.
I then asked if she’d allow me to take her to lunch another day to one of the other restaurant suggestions on the list. It took her a bit to text back, but she said,
“Yes, lunch would be nice!”
That was over six years ago.
Mandy and I have been married for over four years now. We live in a beautiful home with our little French bulldog, our magical 2-year-old baby girl and two SUV’s to drive the family around town.
What Are The Chances?
Sometimes my wife and I will think about all the thousands of different variables that had to be perfectly aligned to allow the probability of us meeting in baggage claim to happen. We’re talking about— travel dates, flight schedules, nobody standing in between us, the temporarily lost business card, and a thousand other variables.
We never could’ve planned it out, much less imagined it, which is precisely the point.
Love found us!
Two seconds before I saw her back in baggage claim, I’d convinced myself I was just unlucky when it came to love.
But two seconds after I saw her, I knew I’d found my soul mate.
Whether you believe in God, math, destiny, fate, or nothing at all, we all have just as much opportunity for great things to happen to us in life as we do bad things.
But when I was single, I only noticed the pattern and trends for bad things to happen. And I’d become a devout believer in bad luck.
However, like trying to predict heads or tails in a coin toss, I never took into account that something good is just as likely to happen as something bad.
But I don’t believe it was luck or chance that led me to meet my wife. I think that moment in the baggage claim had been waiting for me to arrive all my life.
Neither my wife or I were ready for love before. But when our eyes and hearts collided on that magical day, everything we needed and had been searching for came together.
None of us can ever know or predict what’s up ahead.
But as straight and endless as the roads of our life may seem, there’s always a right turn waiting for us somewhere up ahead. We just can’t see it.
We have no way of knowing for sure what will happen next week — or even in the next two hours — but I encourage you to be open to the possibility that something good and life-changing might be just around the corner for you.
My mother carried that belief for me that I’d find a great love someday, and I am going to carry it for you now.
—
Previously published on “Hello, Love”, a Medium publication.
—
***
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project and want to join our calls on a regular basis, please join us as a Premium Member, today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.
Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
Talk to you soon.
—
Photo credit: Michał Parzuchowski on Unsplash