Many years ago, when I was first dating Jake, I thought I’d check our astrological compatibility. So I sent him a message asking for his birth date, but since my previous relationship—a marriage of over a decade—had really battered my tender heart, his reply floored me. He was born on exactly the same day as my ex.
The result? Meltdown City.
I remember running downstairs to find my friend who was also my housemate. “You’ll never guess what!” I told her, breathless. “Jake was born on exactly the same date as ___! Same day, same month, same year!”
Of course, my friend’s jaw also went slack. She was as shocked as I was.
So I paced around my room telling myself I wasn’t repeating the past. “He’s a completely different person to my ex!” I told myself. “It’s just a coincidence! Don’t panic!” There was no way out, and I knew it. The violins were playing, the roses smelled sweet, and I’d already fallen so deeply in love. Every oracle card I pulled said “Marriage.” Literally.
Jake and I actually first met because the universe intervened. The writing center where I taught evening classes offered me a course that I wasn’t qualified to teach. It was called ‘Novel in Progress,’ but I’d yet to publish a novel. I couldn’t even work out why they’d offer it to me, but I loved the idea. As for Jake, he’d signed up for the course but decided to get a refund at the last minute—his running machine had broken and he needed the cash for a new one. However, just as he was about to cancel, he discovered his running machine had somehow fixed itself. And that’s how we met.
It wasn’t love at first sight. But it felt like recognition. As soon as we met, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I knew him already. When I looked at him, I felt like we belonged to each other. It turned out he felt exactly the same.
Looking back, it’s easy to see that the birthday synchronicity was a big, glowing YES.
As our relationship flourished, so did the magic. Shortly after I moved in with Jake, which wasn’t long after the birthday discovery, we found a hornet’s nest in the garden. It was in the top part of Jake’s outdoor grill, and it looked so big and scary that it made my tummy gurgle. Well, we were both reiki-trained so because that nest worried us, we went out and sent reiki right at it, asking the universe to remove it for us. Then we released the problem, closed the lid of the grill, and went shopping.
By the time we got back, the hornet’s nest was no longer there. It hadn’t fallen down. It hadn’t smashed. It hadn’t been blown into another part of the garden. The lid of the grill was still shut.
It had literally gone.
We were staggered. We hadn’t really expected the reiki to work. When we told a family member about this curious happening, she brushed us off saying, “An animal probably took it! Maybe a bird!” But we didn’t see how this invalidated our wows! Surely it’s just as miraculous for a crow or pigeon to descend from the sky, open the grill, and kindly remove the problem!
The truth was from the moment Jake and I met, synchronicities started raining down on us. And this energy seemed to spread. Even my ex, who I still talked to occasionally, remarked on a birthday present I gave him—one that I’d bought at the last minute while Jake and I were at a New Age fair. Not knowing what the heck to get my scientist ex—because it needed to be a casual, uncomplicated gift—I opted for two crystals from the bargain bucket, one white and one purple. They cost me less than five dollars. “There,” I told myself. “My ex may not believe in the healing power of crystals, but he loves crystalline structures. He wrote a whole paper on them.”
Shortly after I gave my ex those crystals, he wrote me an email. It turns out that the same week, the woman he’d been thinking of asking out gave him the exact same two crystals, which she’d bought for him on vacation, except hers were bigger than mine. He put them on the shelf next to mine and was wowed by the similarity. “Now you know I don’t believe in magic,” he told me in an email, “but after that, I couldn’t really NOT ask her out! It was like life had sent me a signpost.”
The next time I heard from my ex, the pair of them were happily married. They had an adorable child—he called her his ‘little angel.’ Life, he told me, was wonderful.
These days, synchronicities appear to me and Jake all the time. I wrote about one, actually, in a novel I’m currently sending to agents: As the story goes, my main characters’ love is forbidden. However, they decide to drop their scruples when, out of nowhere, a song that’s had deep meaning in each of their lives starts playing. That song is Joan Armatrading’s “Love and Affection,” a favorite of mine.
Anyway, two days ago Jake and I were cooking in the kitchen when Joan Armatrading popped up again. Our Siri bot, which we use to play music, magically switched itself on. What’s more, the device pumped up volume so dramatically that we both jumped at the sound. We told Siri to stop, which involved quite a lot of shouting because she literally couldn’t hear us over the din, but once all was silent, we started to wonder. So we asked Siri which song she’d just been playing. “Dry Land,” Siri replied, “by Joan Armatrading.” It turns out Dry Land is on the very same album as “Love and Affection.”
The universe sometimes has a wonderful way of saying, “Keep going. You can do this. Dry land ahoy!”
As for the birthday synchronicity that unnerved me years ago, we’ve found more those since! My father passed on Jake’s father’s birthday. My mother passed on Jake’s mother’s birthday. There are more, but I won’t bore you with them!
When it comes to Jake sharing a birthday with my ex, we’ve come to see it differently. Jake, my soulmate, simply came to Earth with a big sign saying, “Star! It’s me! I’m ready!” That sign just happened to be a significant birth date. Honestly, Jake is nothing like my ex. In fact, to use a British saying, Jake and my ex are chalk and cheese. But the only reason I came to the U.S. was because of my ex. I didn’t actually want to come! It was my ex who persuaded me! Anyway, these days we don’t think much about him, except to wish him well. Jake and I love each other. And we trust in that. We believe those birthday numbers existed to help, not hinder.
The universe is so clever at saying, “Bingo!”
Featured image featuring Star and Jake designed by Star Tavares using Canva
Romancey Pants 