In June of 2019, I parked my car on the righthand side of a street just off of 6th to rush into a Tibetan store. I remember there was no need to hurry, only that the stuporous heat left me half-detached from reality. If not the sun, maybe it was the soon arrival of someone who was, at the time, my world, that left me in a daze. I was wearing typical Colorado attire, donning Birkenstocks and perhaps a flannel tied at the waist.
In the store, I had wanted to find something that would connect me to my then lover. Constantly, incessantly, I want to be bound to those I fall in love with, long after my physical self is gone. I long to not be forgotten, to prove that love is important, it prevails. Love during childhood felt nameless and shapeless and out of that, a desperation to nail it to the goddamn ground grew. Please don't forget that I love you, I seem to always scream. Forget the silly fact that I often give all of my love away till I'm empty and unable to be recycled. No, wait, this isn't a story about love. It's one about fate. Is fate the same as destiny? Is it the same as love? In the store, I would find two bracelets made from stones - a pattern I would repeat at least once more. It had felt successful to me until I was walking back to my car. In the haze of the summer I couldn't understand what I was looking at. My car was unlocked and running. I had parked my car and left the engine on. And it was still there, 20 minutes later. This is a story I have never spoken aloud because I find it so embarrassing. Yet, it's also so remarkably unusual that I've yet to forget it. Unusual for me, a young woman so careful to build a world where she is able to withstand the pressures. I remember the hot leather seat sticking to my thighs while I sat there shell-shocked by how careless I had just been. Then I reversed, put my car in drive, and continued onward. At that time, I wasn't living in Denver and I never thought I would be. I was spending the summer in the mountains before moving my life to a different continent come Fall. Time passed without much pain and I enjoyed being in Colorado, only partially heartsick at the distance I was creating with my then lover. It's now June of 2021, and I've lived in Denver for the past 6 months. In the two years since, I've seen a lot of the world and felt it reflect back on to me. Pain powerfully dealt, I moved my new self to this city. A new self, an ever-changing being. During the snowy month of January, my dog and I settled into a small corner of the Capital Hill neighborhood, piling blankets on bed and lighting candles while making a lot of pasta for meals. I have fallen in love with two more people since June of 2019. My heart breaks softer now than it once did. It took awhile for my half-conscious self to realize. Driving down 6th, back into town, during those first few wintery weeks, I took a left on to my street. The street where I've been living, the one that now reads on my license. Clarkson Street. Just before the left, there stood the Tibetan store, smushed between sushi and a pub. My face froze as it hit me, it was on Clarkson two years prior where I had left my car running. I live a few blocks up now, but it's the same street. I've been wondering since if a part of myself knew. If the Universe was laughing down on me. If the pieces were rearranging. If future me was acknowledging the past me. If the past me felt the current me pass on by. And in that strange symmetry of parallel worlds, I left my car on in a state of silent disturbance, making waves that my two different selfs had run into each other, quite unknowingly. And it comes down to this, the ultimate realization; I have no control over what's to come, or to be. What life will emerge as is always quite unknown. That is for certain. What deems questionable is the idea of fate. What's behind this world? A thing called God calling the shots, painting the picture? The stars crossing your path with significant others? Time bending forwards and backwards with every person's decision to take a different path? Or is it all, always, chaos? Places like Denver and caring for certain people make me believe that it is not random. Where I've been and who I've met cannot be tossed away as chance. No, it is all fate. Fate that I'd be here. Fate that I'll be there, wherever that may be next. Coming to this conclusion, I hope and strive to be whatever the people I met need in that moment. I'm okay with giving, expecting nothing in return. I only hope that I give what is right and needed. Then, perhaps my fate will always keep pushing me forward.
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Author's note:Hi, I'm Helen. Welcome to Lifted ~ I write to lift myself up. Archives
June 2021
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