The deal.

My greatest expeinces also tend the be those through which I learned the most. They are often a bittersweet combination of joy, adventure, love, and usually also involve loss, hardship and a little heartbreak. In what ever form. This year, year and a bit, has been saturated by these experiences. I have learned so much about myself, about others, about the life I lead and about the one I will lead going forward. This last 13 months has defined me. It has been a series of lessons. It has been miracle after miracle. Joseph Campbell would be proud. I am living my life embracing that there is mystery in the world. A few days ago running through the woods not too far from the pacific ocean I stopped. I couldn't help myself. I found myself face to face with trees so tall, so old and I stuck my face in the air. I couldn't stop myself but I made a simple deal with the universe. I would have unwavering faith that this would all work out. That all the risks I am taking, that all the lessons I am learning, will be worth it. That if I just believe and work really really hard that I will continue to live this life where things work out as they seem they should. I write this now because I am in the throws of one such lesson. I am not surprised that I have no answers at the moment. That I am not sure what will happen. I am at the end of something. I am not exactly sure what. Like any ending tears flow more freely than they do in the beginning. I haven't been able to help it lately. I have never found anything so good and just as I am getting into the swing of things it is all going to change. Internships start in less than a few months. We will all be scattered like grain in a wide prairie field. Getting ready for our next steps. It's only that I'm not ready. Not up for having to start something else right now. Not when everything seems just as it should. But there is something else. There is this sense of calm. It is not always there but I can feel it resonate when I need it the most. Deep in my chest, in my heart it is an understanding that whether I make a deal or not there is something else out there making sure that we get what we need. i find it hard to react the way I want to, in extremes because for some reason I can't let go of the feeling that this will all work out as it should. That the right moments stay with us. The right experiences shape who we will be. They give us character. They settle in our hearts and in the back of our minds. Those are the experiences, the people that affect everything else going forward. We never let them go. So in those moments in the woods. One hand pressed to my chest, the other into the damp bark of a tree older than this country, I made that deal.