The cool thing about having a blog for so long is that sometimes things I wrote in the past are applicable to my life today. That happened to me this week when I reread a post from almost exactly 12 years ago. My life is significantly different now – I no longer work at an office job in San Francisco, for instance – but other aspects are the same, and the message in this blog is just what I needed to hear. I hope that’s true for you too.
I often think I’ve missed the boat in life. That what I want can’t happen because the opportunity passed me by. Or maybe I screwed it up. If I hadn’t said XYZ, then I’d have what I want. If I hadn’t made that one mistake, things would have worked out differently. But is that really true?
In 2007 when I worked in Washington, D.C., my coworkers had a Mother’s Day jewelry sale. I went looking for a gift for my mom and passed by a mother-of-pearl shell bracelet with a T-bar and circle clasp. I didn’t think my mom would like it, plus I don’t like buying parts of animals, so I went back to my cubicle empty-handed. But I kept thinking about the bracelet. I wanted it – not for my mom, but for me. I rushed back upstairs and purchased it (and said a prayer for the mollusk who died to give it to me).
The bracelet in question (with a new clasp).
Shortly thereafter I went to a WNBA game with a friend of mine. When the game ended and we started walking toward the exit, I looked down at my wrist and realized my bracelet was gone. (The bracelet is a little bit too big for me and so the T-bar has a tendency to slip from the clasp.) I started searching around me in a panic, checking my pockets, my sleeve, the ground. I retraced my steps, went back to the bathroom to see if it had fallen on the tiles. I scanned the crowded hallway and couldn’t find it. My friend and I went back to our seats and there it was, on the cement, directly below where I was sitting.
Yesterday, while I sat at my desk at work, one of my coworkers came up to me with my bracelet dangling from his fingers and asked, “Is this yours?” I hadn’t even realized I lost it but nonetheless, my bracelet found its way back to me. And then last night on my walk to the chiropractor from work, I realized I lost my bracelet again! I scanned the pavement; I kept my eyes trained on the ground for six blocks searching to no avail. I probably lost it somewhere on my mile walk from work to my apartment. I couldn’t check the office either because today I work from home so I called one of my coworkers and asked her to keep an eye out for it.
What are the odds I will find it? It could have fallen off anywhere. Someone else could have picked it up; it could have been thrown away by someone sweeping the sidewalks. It could have fallen into a sewer grate. In all likelihood my bracelet is gone.
This morning I went to the basement to do some laundry and I looked at the windowsill in the stairwell. Lo and behold, there was my bracelet, waiting for me! (Side note, since this post was first written, I changed the clasp on my bracelet to a lobster claw so it doesn’t keep slipping off.) Of all the places it could have been, of all the possibilities, my bracelet found its way back to me. Some things seem completely illogical, unreasonable, and far-fetched, but if they’re meant to be, they will happen. If you’re meant to have something, you will. In other words, if it’s yours, it’s yours.
I dream of a world where we trust the universe. A world where we shoot for our dreams with full force knowing if it’s meant to be, it will happen. A world where we know magic is real and the impossible is possible. A world where we understand if it’s ours, it’s ours.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
