I Found Myself in Bali

To a simpler time. A time when we had to stalk people by slowly riding our bikes past their houses, a time when we had to handwrite "you up?" letters to our crush in class, a time when we were selling girl scout cookies instead of fit tea. As that time became a part of eras past and the sweet tolling bells of dial up faded in to the distance, so followed the dawn of the social media age. This time was not so simple. For one, I was still in high school and the mysterious book of faces was not yet accessible without a college email address. Myspace Tom was shaking in his boots as we all did our best to knock off elder sibling's emails to play with the big kids. Soon enough the wall came crashing down and we, the high school lot, flooded from the darkness of Myspace to the promised land of white and blue. Sorry, Tom.

As we began to connect, the world grew increasingly small. From our friends, to acquaintances from years past, to complete strangers, the world's populous was at our fingertips. Now having been exposed to the enormity our our existence, I began to wonder- could there be another me? With so many people, there had to be a few duplicates, and I'm not talking about the twin variety. I typed in to the search bar "L-a-u-r-e-n H-i-m-l-e." *Ding* one result surfaced from the masses. Without hesitation or worry I might come off as a complete weirdo, I friended her. As I began to fine tune my new age creeping skills, I found some startling similarities. She was my age, she was blonde and actually looked quite similar, she lived in Michigan (another M state, at this point straight up searching for "coincidences.") But truly, it was a bit unsettling. The following years we're spent in an all out war for gmail, Instagram and twitter handles as the age of connectivity boomed further.

As the years went by our relationship remained dormant aside from the occasional "like" and "happy birthday." All was nearly forgotten until one fateful night- January 4, 2016. On this night the bachelor debuted their 20th season featuring smoke show Ben Higgins and 28 women vying for his love, one of them being Lauren Himle. Next thing you know my social media was under rapid fire attack as I was tagged left and right as people watched and responded to Lauren's every move on the show. I sent her a note to let her know she had twice as many fans as she thought she did and cheered her on silently from my sofa surrounded by wine and snacks. No roses for this Lauren, only rosé. The following two years we're spent getting tagged in posts about trips I wish I was on in Cabo and cosmetics I wish I knew how to use. Living in China for a few years and being unable to access social media without a VPN dulled the pain of these tags as I saw them less and less. Soon enough I all but forgot I was not alone in this world. Until last month.

Over the Chinese New Year holiday I made my way to Bali for a week of sun, culture and food with most everyone else from Shanghai. After a session at the beach club we hopped on wifi to take advantage of internet outside the Great Firewall. The cloudless bikini clad day had to be posted it to Instagram, because if it's not on Instagram, did it really even happen? If a tree falls in the woods and there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound? My friend Katie mentioned, "did you know there's another Lauren Himle on Instagram? I accidentally just tagged her." "Yes yes I know we connected way back when" I exclaimed. "No way" Katie interjected, "she's in Bali too." What? No.. what would she be doing all the way over here? She still lived in Michigan as far as I knew, but I pulled up the search bar and typed in my name. Sure enough, Lauren Himle was in Bali. I messaged her and she instantly responded: "we have to meet."

The meeting was set. Tuesday, noon, Cafe Organic in Seminyak. I hadn't quite come to fully comprehend that it was happening, but around 11:30 on Tuesday hopped in a cab heading towards a meeting that could go one of two ways. What if I didn't like other Lauren Himle? What if it was horribly awkward? Dang it we should have done coffee instead of lunch, coffee gives you a quick escape if things take a turn for the worse. I began to have visions similar to Harry Potter in the Prisoner of Azkaban when he see's himself on the shores of the lake while fighting off dementors, which gives him the courage to literally save himself. I will not apologize for the reference to people who haven't read or seen Harry Potter, you should be the one apologizing. What if we've been living in alternate universes and we were never supposed to meet, what happens when we finally do? I began to sweat profusely as we pulled up to the cafe, despite still sitting in the air conditioned cab. Out I jumped and opened the door and in a flash was embraced... by me.

Other Lauren and I could hardly contain our disbelief. With the same heightened level of excitement we both exclaimed how awesome and completely weird this was. We laughed nervously as we continued to say the same things at the same time. Our friends sat watching us in shock and awe as we caught each other up about our lives and filled in the voids that we had not been witness to on Facebook or Instagram. We reminisced about all those years ago how funny it was to find the one other Lauren in the world but still couldn't quite believe we were now meeting in person. In Bali of all places. We began to ask about where our families came from, before Michigan she explained her dad was born in South Dakota. But originally her family was from Norway. Hm, mine too. "Where in Norway?" I asked. "Just outside of Voss," she replied. Hm, mine too. "WHERE outside of Voss?" I asked. "Well, there's this place called Himle Valley and we have this old farm up on a hillside." YOU DON'T SAY, HM, MINE TOO. The jaws of our friends dropped further as we made the ultimate connection. "Do you have an older relative Kjell that still lives there?" She asked? YES, YES I DO. More screaming, more hugging, more how in the world is this actually happening. So I guess we were.... cousins? We compared photos of us that were taken weeks apart sitting on the same couch at the same farm eating the same waffles with the same relative Kjell. Our only conclusion for his failure to mention us to each other is that he thought we were the same person.

This was unbelievable, our families needed to know as soon as possible. With the time difference there was a chance they were still awake so we whipped out our phones. I pulled up our family group chat titled "FAMBAM." She pulled up her family group chat titled "FAMJAM.".... Our families responded with the same disbelief, with neither side able to piece together how we didn't know the other existed.

We're still not sure if we have uncovered some deep dark family secret or people and papers just got lost during our mini Himle manifest destiny, this is yet to be determined. Regardless of the past, we're thrilled to now be a part of each other's present. As our time ran out and the "other" Lauren had to head to the airport and make her way back to the states, we decided our families had to meet. We have yet to decide whether it will be Himle cabin in northern Michigan or Himle cabin in northern Minnesota, but come July, two will become one. We exchanged phone numbers, hugged some more and took our first photo together... because if we don't post it on Instagram, did it even happen?

To be continued...