Finding the people who really get you is one of the great things that happens to us in this life.

Do you ever stop and think about how you became friends with someone and all of the tiny decisions each of you made, and others you didn’t, that brought you to that point?

I imagine two parallel Plinko boards, each person standing at the top ready to release a chip on a chaotic journey.  They bounce around, at one moment shooting away from the “Awesome Friend” bin at the bottom, the next they shoot to the opposite side before miraculously both dropping in line at the last moment.  Lights flash, triumphant music blares and the two of you sprint toward each other, hands raised, and unleash the most epic high-five in history to seal your new relationship.

I’m thinking about this after having brunch the other day with my friend Aundrea.  We high-fived in grad school, and ever since she has been someone I always feel like roots harder for me than just about anyone.  I always walk away from our conversation thinking, “I’ve got this!”

Aundrea, left, me, right, other good people in between

But to even remotely get to that point, we first had to be interested in the same field, choose to pursue grad school, apply to the same school, get accepted, choose Maryland over our other options, select starting in the summer instead of the fall, have the right number of classmates that we ended up interacting in basically all of our classes, and after all of that, we had to actually talking to each other.  Any number of things could have upset one of those factors and I would not have been eating pancakes on Friday.

Sometimes friends graffiti your notes during class (it’s frightening how quickly I found this among my college papers)

And yes, I do recall a specific high-five happening.  We were in a communication theory class, sitting on opposite sides of the room but facing each other.  At some point (I think during a break) there was some sort of discussion on her side that I apparently found favorable, and we executed an Office-style air five.

I believe that counts under my analogy.