Look, don't look so much.

I’m a big believer that the Universe (capital U) knows a lot, and that I should listen to it.  I own (and actively use) tarot cards.  I have crystals hanging in my room.  I pray constantly.  And I think that recently, I’ve felt a little abandoned.  I get an idea in my head, that I should leave this place, at this time, so that I can be in the Right Place™️, at the Right Time™️ for **something magical** to happen (knowing exactly what I want that **something magical** to be).  And when that exact thing does not happen, I let my heart sink, I let myself believe that I’m more alone than I used to be.  I wait for signs, but I only look for them in the same places, over and over.  

The other day, I left lunch earlier than I usually do.  I wasn’t feeling great about where I was or what I was feeling in the moment, so I packed up and walked an unusual route, slowly to class, hoping for exactly one thing to happen.  That exact, specific thing did not happen.  I didn’t run into the one person I had been hoping to run into.  I instead ran into three, very important, very good, very healthy-for-me people.  And I still managed to let myself go along feeling disappointed and alone.  

On my way back home the next night, I walked right past the office (where I would usually stop on my way home after a long day), choosing to go straight back to my room instead.  As I walked the path past the office, I thought that maybe this choice would have me meet someone as I walked home, would bring me a visitor once I was there.  As I was opening my blinds, someone walked by my window, asking if they could come talk to me for a bit.  I said yes, and they did.  And it was a conversation that I’m incredibly grateful for; I feel so blessed by it.  I (being oblivious and stubborn and a little self-pitying) didn’t think of either of these instances as being in the right place at the right time, I was simply happy that they had happened.  

I am someone always searching for signs.  I seek out significance that may or may not be present in everything.  Symbols and metaphors are everywhere — I am constantly making meaning out of the meaningless.  But I only seem to do it on my own terms.  Which isn’t how that works, at all.  Sometimes (read: all of the time), what I need to do is just open my eyes and see, rather than look, make choices accordingly.

I’ve been waiting and waiting for very specific outreach from very specific people.  I’ve spent most of the semester hoping for things to become what they used to be, for the Universe to give me what I want it to give me for being in the Right Place™️, at the Right Time™️.  

I’ve been being ridiculous, and a bit haughty.  I don’t know a whole lot, other than that I don’t know a whole lot.  Why would I know better than all of the higher powers that I’m always trying so hard to listen to?  

Yesterday was a snow day, the best kind of day.  It was the kind of day that always makes everything more beautiful, happier.  And I was in the right places, at the right times.  And being so happy and in the right place as I was yesterday, I realized how everything else had been happening around me, in the exact way that it should have been.  Yesterday was the first day (in what I’m hoping will be a long, life-long series of days) that I saw instead of looked, and was all the happier for it.