BE HERE NOW (GIFTS IN THE PRESENT)

I don't believe in coincidence.

Let that sink in.

Don't skip past this irrational statement....
that I'm dropping your way so boldly.

I do NOT believe in coincidence.

This is not intended to be advice or imply that you should believe this too.
I know that saying this is a little ludicrous and naive.
I still believe it.
I'm not letting go of it anytime soon.
It works for me.

Let me be specific (because in this case I actually am quite specific).

I believe that every person who crosses my path

was meant to cross my path.

No mistakes or accidents or do-overs.

The people around me are the people 

who are supposed to be around me.

Maybe for a big reason, maybe for no reason.
Maybe the reason has to do with me,
maybe it has to do with them,
maybe it has to do with their Great-Aunt Mabel.

Maybe so I can make eye contact and smile.

Maybe so I can ignore them.

Maybe so they can show me how to properly pull off boyfriend jeans.

WHO CAN KNOW? 

I am not out for proving or disproving this belief.
It is staying for as long as I still find it useful.
Which so far has been forever.

I believe everyone who shows up

is sort of cosmically destined to be...well, in front of me.

Everyone. 

Even if they are only in my path for a fraction of a moment.

Even if we didn't make eye contact or acknowledge each other.

Everyone matters.

That guy at the grocery, packing my bags.

The woman stopped at the light beside me.

The kid that skipped in front of my cart at Target.

The dudes that flipped me off on the eve of the election

 as we were driving down 540.
(Seriously, they slowed down, rolled their window down, flipped me off.  
If that's not useful foreshadowing, I don't know what is).

All of 'em.

Supposed to be, intentionally placed, with a (potential) purpose.

The ones that show up in front of you are ON PURPOSE!  What magic!

Why do I believe these are people are supposed to be in my life?
There's a pretty simple reason....

Because these ARE the people who are in my orbit.

They are the details floating through my life that is unfolding right now.

There were choices made, paths chosen...that led to here.

If other choices were made, then these people would not be here right now.

They would be elsewhere doing other things.

So these people are my people.

Even the ones I don't like or who I wish could see things differently.

Even the ones that smell or are rude.

Especially the ones that jolt me out of my little world

and into something deeper, more nuanced or less comfortable.
That is part of the beauty of living in the now...when I show up in the present, 

I realize how much is happening there.

I always have reminders to myself on my monitor at work.  Be here, now.  This time with these people will not last.

I want to point out one small detail here that makes the difference

between this being an acceptable belief

and a toxic pit of self-limiting destruction.

This is not my pollyanna nature saying that everything works 
for the greater good.

That the bad thing that happened to you made sense

or that everything happens for a reason.

I'm specifically not passing responsibility for someone else's
abusive or toxic choices onto the people in their vicinity.
If you are in relationship with people who are awful,
of course you should stop having that relationship.
Or adjust it in someway-move, change your contact info, 
or politely decline invitations.
Just because terrible people are in front of you 
doesn't mean they should remain.
I do not mean to imply that you deserve terrible 
stuff because you chose poorly.
That is hurtful bullshit that has no place in life.
So if that's what you take away from this series...
just stop reading for a while.
I've got a nuanced approach to this little belief
 but if you're still in the throes of 
trauma or resentment or 'the mud'
then this perspective is not for you.

For me, this underlying belief has always helped me focus and re-frame.

This is one of the ways that I process life experiences.

Instead of re-playing what could have or should have or might have...

I eventually move to accepting what is.

What happened is what was going to happen.
I could not have avoided it in any way.
If I could have, then I would have.
So what happened, was the path that was taken
and my choice now is to learn from that path
(not perpetually lament over all the possibilities that didn't manifest).

I also use this as a mantra in my daily life-
a cue to look up and pay attention to what is happening around me.
What gift of a person in the right now am I missing
by staring at my phone?
If I didn't pay attention to the people thrown into my orbit,
I would have missed so much.
When I'm uncomfortable or want to hide out in my shell,
I remind myself that these people
RIGHT HERE IN FRONT OF ME
are my people.
All of them.

The next few posts will focus on experiences or people who have shown up

in my life and whose presence I believe to be absolutely on purpose.
Not coincidental.

The lessons from these encounters could have been small-
but were instead profound.

Some of these encounters were clearly pivotal to me at the time....

others didn't dawn on me until much much later.

They'll all have the hashtag #beherenow