[Note from Frolic: This post is brought to you by our friends at Kensington. Looking for your next book celebrating happy accidents? Look no further than RomeAntically Channelged by Marina Adair, out now!]
Marina Adair’s new book RomeAntically Challenged is all about the good things that can come from mishaps & unfortunate events! When she finds herself in Rome, Rhode Island, she’s less than pleased, but soon realizes that her sexy new roommate, Emmett, may by just what she was looking for all along. This got us thinking about blessings in disguise and how going with the flow can make things turn out better than ever. Here are four “Happy Accident” moments that we here at Frolic have experienced.
Frolic Contributor Annalise Herrmann shares:
“My husband and I live in the desert. As in there’s no moisture in the air and a heat advisory every single day of the summer kind of desert. It’s perhaps not surprising that when we get the chance to travel we usually choose cooler, rainer climates. One such vacation we took a few years back was to Seattle. We were going to hike in some pine trees, drink some good coffee, and do all the touristy things. One such touristy thing was Snoqualmie Falls (a waterfall you will immediately recognize if you are at all into the cult classic Twin Peaks). Well, when we bargained for rainier we didn’t exactly expect apocalyptic-like wind and rain, but it’s what we got. We only tentatively decided to go through with the plan to drive to the falls despite the storm and were mostly sullen and shattered that our plan for hikes and a long day in nature were going to be a failure.”
It turns out that rain coming down in sheets paired with high winds stops most tourists. The location that is usually incredibly crowded and busy was completely empty. I’m not exaggerating when I say we had the whole place entirely to ourselves. It was magical. We stayed at the prime view for as long as we wanted and took a million pictures. We found an equally empty little cafe for lunch that is still one of my favorite meals that I can remember from the trip. Besides nearly being picked up by the wind and tossed into the falls below it was a perfect day neither of us would have anticipated. (My only regret from that trip was being unable to go out to the Olympic Peninsula in search of the Cullens but that is neither here nor there.)
Frolic Contributor Mazey Eddings Shares:
“I moved around a lot as an adolescent. I ended up going to three different high schools, two of them in California! I always put all of myself into school, with this ultimate goal of getting to college where I could just learn learn learn until my book shaped heart was content. But by the time I graduated high school, I had moved so many times that my residency status was really messed up and I didn’t qualify for in-state tuition anywhere. I was registered to go to college at a state school in CA, but when I got my tuition bill, I realized I absolutely COULD NOT afford it.
Even with loans, the overall debt would have been insane. And I was devastated. All my life I’d been working towards this one dream of going to school. That summer I was miserable. My depression and anxiety were so bad, and I had no idea what I was doing with my life, all I knew was that it wasn’t going as I had planned. At the end of July, my mom and I visited my grandma in Asheville, NC, and she told me there was a small college in the town (UNCA). I toured the campus and fell absolutely in love with it. I met with admissions that day, and because I had done so well in high school, they were able to offer me a spot for the fall semester the next day. Ten days later, I packed up my life and moved to North Carolina.
On the very first day of school, I had to wake up at 6am to change my schedule because they’d put me in a freshman seminar called “The Magic of Triangles” and I absolutely was not going to sit through that for an entire semester. I picked the only other freshman seminar open, “Entrepreneurship in Chemistry,” closed my laptop, and went to do scheduled first day activities.
I felt a little lost and a little scared. But during a freshman activity on the quad, I saw this guy run across the grass. He had on these bright yellow shorts and had this beaming smile and my heart did that weird little kickstart thing when I saw him and I was like “huh, I think I’ll really like it here.” An hour later, I went to my freshman seminar, and low and behold, yellow-shorts-kid was in there and the only open seat was next to him. I ended up teasing (my idea of flirting) with him the whole class period (and I should mention I had pink hair and some very heavy eye-liner at the time so I was very intimidating), and we became best friends. A month later we started dating. We’re celebrating our seventh anniversary in September.
If I’d never had all of my plans totally disrupted, I never would have met my best friend and love of my life. If I hadn’t hated geometry so much, I might never had switched to the seminar he was in. UNCA ended up being the best college experience I could have ever imagined for myself. The whole experience taught me that no matter how bad things seem, I’ll always end up exactly where I’m meant to be.”
Frolic Contributor Wende Hurtuk Shares:
“A little over a year ago, my absolute favorite band, Panic! At The Disco was coming to town. The only problem was that I had no tickets, nor did I have anyone to go with me. When tickets went on sale, they sold out instantly. As heartbroken as I was, I never paid it much attention until the actual day of the concert. I was hit with a bad case of FOMO. As I was sadly scrolling through my social media feeds, my eyes caught on a post by the band! They had posted an hour before the show that they had just released 10 floor tickets to any lucky fans who could get to them fast enough. Sure enough, I somehow managed to snag one of the ten tickets! I couldn’t believe how lucky I was. I expressed my gratitude to the band so many times that I lost count. That night was truly the best night of my life. Not only did I snag the best seat in the house only an hour before the show, but I was able to meet some members of the band and I got to hug Brendon Urie himself as he did his walk around the arena! It was truly a night that I’ll forever be grateful for, and one that I’ll never forget. Sometimes, the last-minute plans become the best nights ever!”
Frolic Coordinator Samantha Martin Shares:
“When I was sixteen, I was completely obsessed with the Divergent franchise. When I scored tickets to a month-early premiere screening of the movie, I was ecstatic. My friend and I drove an hour and a half to get there and arrived at the theater three hours early. When the theater filled up the second we made it to the front of the line, we were devastated. Being the dumpster-fire of a sixteen-year-old I was, I cried off all of my Divergent-themed makeup and sent a…regrettable email to the marketing team. They responded with apologies that we weren’t able to see the movie that night and offered exclusive tickets to a premiere a week later! Little did I know that I would meet a great new friend there! Being the Divergent nuts we were, my friend and I immediately hit it off with the girls sitting behind us. To this day, I keep in touch with Autumn. Her friendship was totally worth missing the first screening!”
Have you ever had a “happy accident?” Let us know in the comments!
