Three summers ago, I missed my flight because I went to the wrong terminal. Crying in a plastic chair, I met a man who spoke to me like we’d known each other forever. We never exchanged numbers, and I figured I’d never see him again.
But later, I discovered he was someone I should have known all along.
It was a sticky July morning, and I was sprinting through the airport, flustered and exhausted. My ticket said Terminal B, but I wandered into D, where I ended up battling a vending machine for a pack of stale almonds. I was supposed to be on my way to Phoenix for a job interview I didn’t even care about. At the time, my life was unraveling—broke, burned out, heartbroken, and renting a tiny apartment with a ceiling that leaked every time it rained.
When the gate agent told me my plane had already left, I collapsed into a chair, swallowing back the kind of tears that ache in your throat. That’s when he sat down beside me.
He looked like the cover of an outdoor magazine—jeans worn thin, hiking boots scuffed, canvas backpack slung at his feet. Mid-forties, salt-and-pepper hair, steady eyes. He didn’t rush to comfort me. Just sat quietly, sipping from a dented thermos.
Then he said, “You missed yours too?”
I nodded. “Wrong terminal.”
He chuckled. “Same here. Maybe we’re exactly where we’re supposed to be.”
I almost rolled my eyes. But something in his voice—gentle, certain—made me stay open. Soon we were talking. Really talking. He asked about my life, not the surface-level stuff but the buried parts—my passions, my lost dreams. I confessed that I used to write poetry, that I once imagined starting a small press, that my corporate job felt like a slow death.
He told me he had once worked in finance but walked away after his sister died. He didn’t share her name—just said she was an artist, and her absence made the numbers on a screen unbearable. So he left New York, bought a van, and had been drifting ever since.
I never even caught his name. By the time I realized I’d stopped crying, he was standing, slinging his bag over his shoulder.
“They rebooked me,” he said. “But if you ever end up in Santa Fe, check out The Blue Finch Café. Thursday nights. Poetry readings. You’d belong there.”
And then he was gone.
I never went to Phoenix. Never rescheduled the interview. Instead, I quit my job.
I cobbled together freelance gigs—editing, copywriting—just enough to scrape by. I started writing again. Poems scribbled on napkins, messy essays that felt like stretching muscles long unused.
A year later, I found myself in Santa Fe, chasing a stranger’s offhand comment. The Blue Finch Café was tiny, cozy—books stacked in corners, chalkboard menus, mismatched chairs. I hadn’t planned on reading, but when open mic began, I stood up with shaking hands and shared a poem I’d written during a layover. People clapped.
One man in the back—Colin, the café owner—approached me afterward. Said he was starting a small press, asked if I’d consider submitting. That one conversation led to a zine, then a chapbook, then my first poetry collection. Small, indie, but real. Readers reached out. People told me my words helped them feel again.
My life tilted. I began teaching workshops, reading at bookstores.
Then came the retreat in Taos. The organizer sent the guest list, and one name jumped out: Navin Singh.
I Googled him. My stomach dropped.
He wasn’t just a wanderer. He had once been the founder of Lightseed, a groundbreaking investment firm known for funding social ventures and arts foundations. A man who had walked away from millions after a personal tragedy.
And there he was, sitting across the table from me at dinner, same thermos in hand.
“Wrong terminal girl,” he said, grinning.
This time we traded real names. I told him about quitting, about the café, about the book that never would’ve happened if not for him. He nodded, then said:
“It’s never about the big breaks. Just the small nudges. Little cracks where the light gets in.”
We stayed in touch. Not as anything romantic, but as friends. He sent me prompts when I was stuck. I mailed him drafts of new poems. He always wrote back: Keep going. It’s honest.
Then, last year, his sister found me. Her name was Tali. She told me Navin had often spoken about me—that I reminded him of her, of what she’d lost and found again. She wasn’t gone as I’d assumed. She had simply disappeared for a time, healing in silence. Navin had protected her story, and somehow my existence had given him hope along the way.
Not long after, Colin at the café told me a donor had funded a new writer-in-residence program. He didn’t say who. But I knew.
Now I live in a small adobe cottage behind The Blue Finch. I teach poetry to local teens. I’m writing my second book. Every Thursday night, before the open mic, I light a candle and leave a chair open at the back of the café.
Because here’s the truth: you don’t always need a grand turning point. Sometimes missing one flight is enough to put you right where you belong.
So if you’re reading this feeling like you’ve blown your chance, or wasted your time—hear me: you haven’t. Not even close.
Sometimes the universe sends a stranger to nudge you back toward yourself. And sometimes, you get to be that stranger for someone else.