Category: Creative

Fate only exists in hindsight. It’s a convenient scapegoat to ease our troubled hearts when something doesn’t go our way. We say things like “It couldn’t have happened any other way,” or “it was meant to be.” You can’t change fate. These are comforting phrases to keep in our pockets when we must rein in our wandering. Stray too far, and we will find shame, guilt, regret, and all those painful feelings we would all rather do without. Fate allows us to deny the possibility of any other outcome. If it was all fated, then it was never in our control to begin with. If it was all fated, we only have the mystical, higher forces to blame for our unhappiness.

Psychologically, I’m fascinated by the concept. But I was not fated to be a psychologist. I come to you as merely a human being with a lifetime of expertise based on lived experience. I’ll share an example of one of my most prominent run-ins with fate.

The summer after my high school, I had the upcoming months planned out in a neat row. I applied to an in-state university only three hours from my hometown. It was a small school close to home with low academic standards, and most of my graduating class was attending there. Needless to say, it was safe. I toured the campus, picked out my classes, and even met my future dorm roommate. Everything was in order for me to move there in late August.

As fate would have it, I started dating my childhood crush that same summer. He was somewhat known as the class heartthrob, and he took a turn dating every one of my friends except me. I told myself I didn’t care, I didn’t understand what the hype was about, and I would rather be his friend anyway. All a bunch of masterfully crafted lies I told myself to shield my heart from the pain of never being chosen. We had gone to the same school since first grade, but it took us twelve years to graduate from friends to lovers.

He was going to an out-of-state university in the fall, close to his family but too far to maintain a long-distance relationship. With the impending break-up at summer’s end, we squeezed in every possible moment together. When his work called him to spend a couple weeks guiding raft trips in the neighboring state, I dropped everything to come along. While we couldn’t be on the water together, I spent my days exploring nearby cities until we reunited at our riverside campsite.

Our friends had moved to one of those nearby cities the year before. They had been dating since high school and left our hometown as soon as they could. Their weekly pictures of indie music scenes and street festivals made our small town feel even smaller. We decided to drive a couple hours out of the way to visit them for a weekend. I stuck out like a sore thumb maneuvering my boyfriend’s monstrous red truck through the narrow alleyway of our friends’ apartment building. The engine grumbled in the sweltering sun as I pulled into a compact angular parking space. Forward– back– forward– back– forward– crunch! The red truck hit a matching blue truck as we both fought for space in the city’s most awkward parking lot. I jumped out and began spilling apologies all over the driver faster than he could pick them up. He was a tall man with white hair and an oblivious expression. We introduced ourselves, and I explained I was here visiting friends for a short while.

“Where do your friends live?” His voice was casual, as if we were chatting at a neighborhood barbecue rather than standing beside two dented trucks.

“Apartment one,” I gestured vaguely toward the building, still waiting to exchange insurance information.

“I own that building,” his eyes crinkled at the corner when he smiled.

“You do?” My palms were slick with sweat.

“Yup! Been here thirty years, watched this whole neighborhood grow up. Apartment three is vacant right now, so you can take that parking spot,” he paused and gave me a cheesy grin. “If you want to move in, give me a call.”

That evening, as the summer sun faded and the city lights matched the twinkling stars in the midnight sky, I recounted this story to my boyfriend. We laughed about it as we did with most funny stories that get filed into fond memories that lose significance over time. But this was different. My boyfriend woke me up that night as we slept on our friends’ apartment floor. “We could have a place like this,” he said. I thought about it, weighing the logistics of moving here and what it would be like. I loved the city. It had a university with a better writing program than the one I had applied to. Our friends would be right next door. It all seemed so perfect that I knew it would fall apart if I examined it any longer. So, I cancelled my enrollment at the in-state university, redirected all my scholarship funds, went home and told my mom I was moving farther away than planned. Her worries were too big to hide behind her supportive demeanor, but I know she is proud of me. She of all people knows my dreams needed lots of room to grow. Today, I’m writing this story at the same desk I brought with me when I moved to this city all those years ago. 

In hindsight, I can say it was fate that I hit my future landlord’s truck. That one accident sparked a chain of events that derailed my carefully laid out life plan. I would have had different friends, a different home, a different job, a different school, and a string of experiences that would make me a different person. Had I declined the offer and stayed at the in-state school, I would have said things like, “I was meant to be here,” and “it couldn’t have happened any other way.” But it could have, and that’s the thing.

My boyfriend and I broke up, and I have had many loves come and go since then. The friends I lived next door to also broke up, and none of us talk to each other anymore. Though nothing turned out the way I expected it to, I wouldn’t change it if I could. If we accept that it could have happened another way, we open the door for multiple space-time continuums and alternate realities. Which– I like to believe– is possible, though I’m not sure what modern science has to say about that. But I was not fated to be a scientist. I was fated to be a writer. And as such, my realities come from the ocean of my imagination, inspired by my past experiences and those of the ancestors before me.

If we are to accept alternate realities as true and valid as present realities, then we must also accept defeat. We must accept that the choices we made are irreversible byand were, ultimately, unnecessary. We could have made different choices that resulted in a more desirable outcome. But, had we done that, we might face a similar dilemma in which we wondered what would have happened if we made another choice. Let’s say I did stay in my home state. Who’s to say I wouldn’t wonder what could have been if I accepted the offer to move next door to my friends? If my core self today remained the same in this alternate timeline– and for the sake of simplicity, let’s assume it did– then I would ponder these things. Because I am a philosopher at heart. And I cannot help but wonder what could have been and what could be. 

No matter how long we go back and forth on these possibilities, we will always end up in the same place. Right here. Right now. See? This is all that really exists. Even in an alternate timeline, we will always be in the present moment. We will drive our little human minds bonkers if we get stuck in the loop of what could have been and what could be. We can never know what was fortunate and unfortunate until it is too late. The truth is, fate exists in hindsight and it exists right now. If you subscribe to the philosophy of fate, then you must believe that every event, big and small, is leading up to what is meant to happen next. By that definition, this moment is fate. And so is this one. And so is this one. And so is this one. Let’s skip all the complications and just be here now. Let it all happen. Surrender to fate, even if it is just a scapegoat.

From the Wisdom of the Oracle

When I was an actress, my favorite part of the show was when everyone went home. The soft house lights were on, and I walked through the empty crowd kicking my heels through balloons. Strips of sequins and tassels littered the floor. Piles of dirt, torn tickets, popcorn crumbs—this was the only evidence that anyone had been there to watch the show. Sometimes, I still put those costumes back on, turn up the music, and dance on top of the kitchen table. I close my eyes and imagine the warm glow of the old spotlight warming my skin on stage.

That was six months before the summer that changed my life, when my boyfriend and I made our first real choice as adults. We’d been castmates since first grade, growing up under the same spotlight, but never quite seeing each other in this light until after the final curtain call of our senior year. It felt like running away—even though we were eighteen and perfectly capable of making our own decisions. There was something deliciously rebellious about running away, like we were characters in our own coming-of-age story. We were just writing the first pages of our adult lives.

I was sitting on top of a red pickup in the parking lot of an off-brand grocery store in a town with less than one hundred people. My boyfriend was inside buying snacks for the road ahead, plotting our course to the next river town. While he took groups on whitewater adventures all day, I had the privilege of exploring the surrounding forests and towns, discovering what true independence tasted like. 

The oversized t-shirt I bought at a reggae concert that spring looked like a dress paired with my athletic shorts. I kicked off my flip-flops and flicked down my sunglasses. My dark hair was damp and curly from swimming all day with a braid. I had just torn open a hot sauce packet and was spreading it across my bean and cheese burrito when an old man in a motorized wheelchair spotted me from across the parking lot. I pretended not to notice, but it would have been rude not to acknowledge him when he wheeled right up to the tailgate. He looked up at me, confused. I looked down at him, likewise.

“You must be one of those weird cool girls,” he said. Taken aback, I didn’t say anything, and he rode away. Years later, I still think about that moment—who was he to see right through my carefully constructed persona?

Was I one of those weird cool girls? Maybe, if weird cool girls wore makeup and dresses to play every character except herself. If weird cool girls climbed trees and talked to animals. If they preferred feminist, anti-capitalist dystopian novels to princesses and fairy tales. If they loved singing and dancing but nothing more than writing. If their dreams were astronomically larger than any stuffy small town could accommodate.

Maybe I had been playing the part of one of those “weird cool girls” at that moment. Because everyone knows a real “cool girl” doesn’t have any interests; she likes what you like. A real “cool girl” doesn’t have any needs; she just wants you to be happy. A real “cool girl” never loses her cool. She doesn’t get angry or sad or have any emotion that would make you uncomfortable. I worked tirelessly to fit the expectations of others. Because if I didn’t fit their expectations, they would leave me… right?

That’s the thing about being a people pleaser: you get so good at pleasing others, you forget what pleases you.

But that summer, I started to remember. I found hidden swimming holes where I stripped down to nothing but sunshine, the water cool against my bare skin. I wandered into dusty bookstores and vintage record shops. I stumbled upon a Shakespeare Festival, watching thespians wander the streets in costumes as if they were casual clothes. While my boyfriend guided strangers through whitewater, I guided myself through the back roads and alleyways of towns whose names I’ve since forgotten but memories I cherish.

At night, we reconnected by the fire, sharing stories of our separate adventures until the stars wheeled overhead. He shared tales of rapids and waterfalls while I recounted discoveries of hidden nooks in the city. We weren’t playing leads in a school production anymore—we were writing our own impromptu scripts. 

That summer granted me the freedom to be whoever I wanted to be for the first time in my life. And I had no idea who that was. My self-assurance was so unstable that a simple comment by a stranger in a parking lot knocked me down. I am still learning that growing up doesn’t mean having all the answers—it means becoming comfortable with the questions. The moment you think you know is always when something changes. 

You never know what moments will change your life until they’ve passed. All my life, I’d been trying to break free from the roles assigned to me, but I didn’t realize they were all part of me, too. It would be arrogant and naive to say my journey toward self-discovery ended that summer—it barely began. But it was the first time I realized that the most important– and often most difficult– performance of my life is being authentically myself, no matter who is and isn’t watching. 

From The Wild Unknown Tarot

From the Wild Unknown Tarot

The weight of the gray winter sky pushed on the frail body of a bunny, whose white coat camouflaged it against the snow-covered field. It would have been invisible if not for its twitching pink nose and cloud of breath in the frosty air. Awake when it should have been sleeping, a cold pain twisted inside the bunny’s stomach, a gnawing reminder of its failure to prepare for the long months ahead. The trees stood bare, fields lay still, and the only sound was a chill whispering in the air that spring might never return.

The snow crunched under its long, flat feet as it hopped across the open field. Ahead stood a willow tree, its icy tendrils hanging to the ground like stalactites forming a protective barrier around its mighty trunk. The bunny hopped closer and slipped slipped through the gate of frozen branches. Under the tree’s warm embrace, roots twirled from the frozen dirt creating a cradle just the perfect size for a bunny to rest its tired head.

The bunny curled its paws around its face and closed its eyes, feeling the heaviness of sleep for the first time since the seasons shifted. The ground beneath its body softened, and the roots tightened as if hugging the tiny creature closer to its breast. The bunny opened its eyes, ears twitching. “Are you awake?” it whispered.

A gust of wind loosened the icicles from the willow’s branches, shattering on the ground. The trunk expanded and contracted as it took a deep breath. “I am always awake,” the willow responded in a voice as soft as moss and deep as the ocean. “I am an herald of the Goddess of the East. She resides over the realm of breath, spirit, and spring, among many things.”

“Spring?” the bunny echoed.

“Indeed. I stay awake in the quiet moments before growth. Even now, as the earth rests and the world feels frozen, life is stirring beneath the surface.”

The bunny gazed up at the frosted canopy twinkling in the few sun rays that managed to penetrate the thick layer of clouds. Though the hollow in the willow’s roots was warm, spring felt so far away. “How can I believe in something I cannot see?”

“Spring begins long before the flowers bloom. The snow blankets the buried seeds as they gather strength to emerge when the frost melts. All stories begin in silence. Beginnings are everywhere, little one. Even when you cannot see them.”

“Not for me,” the bunny’s hushed voice quivered. “I did not store enough food before hibernation, and the hunger hurts my belly so that I cannot fall back to sleep. I worry this winter is my last.”

Another breath from the willow tree cracked its stiff, frozen branches as it reached in toward the bunny. It offered a sprig of fresh mint, a humble treat that the bunny savored with each bite. “Begin with faith, little one. Not in what you see, but in what you feel. Begin with the fertile ground of this moment, with the innocence of not knowing how it all turns out. Begin without waiting for spring to come, and trust that everything you need has already arrived.”

The bunny looked up at the willow’s graceful trunk. “Even now?”

“Especially now,” the willow said. “Trust that every moment—no matter how small— is exactly where you need to be.”

The final mint leaf left a cold tingling on the bunny’s tongue, yet somehow its insides felt warmer. Still uncertain if it would open its eyes again, the wisdom of the willow tree set the bunny at ease enough to doze off once more. They must trust, as all creatures do, that spring will always begin again.