The Irish Tray Theory

Freewill or fate? The question with no straight answer.

I’ve been running in circles trying to wrap my head around this: if most people and decisions have the power to change us entirely—our paths, our beliefs, our lives—how can they be random? But I’m also not fully comfortable with this whole existence being on autopilot.

After binge-watching The Matrix movies (yes, I’d never seen them until yesterday), I realized: maybe the real question isn’t how we make choices. Maybe it’s why.

The other night, my little sister, mid-FaceTime, asked me:

“Hudson, when you met Mr. International, how the hell did this man not just run for the hills the second you spoke English to him, and his only background in the language was TV shows?”
I laughed. But then I paused.
Wait—wtf.
I wouldn’t have kept talking to me. Not with a language barrier like that. What made him stay?

So, I asked him to recount the night for me.

He was out that night celebrating a friend’s birthday. His friends were teasing him for being so uninterested in dating at the time. A few drinks in, one of the guys told him to do the classic “scan the bar and pick who you’d approach.” He looked around.
Nobody caught his eye. Strike one.

Meanwhile, I was across the city, high off jazz music and letting my friends convince me to keep the night going at an Irish bar.
We soon walked in. I did my usual scan—short, short, short… okay, yeah, no one here.
Until I looked to the right corner. Tall guy. Noted.

Apparently, this was around the time Mr. International said to his friend, “Okay, there’s two beautiful girls.” His friend chimed in, pointing at me:
“Yes, but look at this one—she’s beautiful without makeup.”
Best beauty contest I never entered.
But that still wasn’t the moment that did it.

It was the Irish tray.
My friend spilled it on me. I burst into laughter.
And in that moment—drenched and cracking up—Mr. International simultaneously decided I was worth approaching and sticking around for—language barrier and all.

Funny how that works. Four months later, he’s my best friend. My peace. My adventure. It’s wild to think that before that night, we were strangers. And now I sit with this strange ache in my chest that whispers, he’s been in your heart all along.

Which brings me back to the question: how vs. why.
People who shape our lives so specifically—how could they not be meant to be there? Truly, that’s how I define love. I knew I felt it when I looked at him and realized: No one else in the world could bring out what he brings out in me. He is uniquely him. And I love all that comes with that.

But what if it really was just choice? What if there was no divine nudge? No fate? What if our friends weren’t unknowingly playing matchmaker?

Yes, that feels freeing.
But freedom isn’t the right word for missing someone who liberated you from a life where you didn’t know true love.

And as I write this, Broken Halos by Chris Stapleton sings: “We’re not meant to know the answers. Folded wings that used to fly.

And what a nice thought — maybe we’re all just higher beings trying to remember what it felt like to fly.
To live without limits.
To imagine freely.
To move without fear.

My European history teacher used to say, “The only thing we have to do in life is choose.”
But what if the choices were already made?
And what if, instead of obsessing over how something happened, we just focused on why we chose it for our path?

And when I think of it that way—
I love not having all the answers.

Because it means I get to discover them along the way.
I get to walk blindly into an Irish bar, high on life and jazz.
He gets to do the same, minus the jazz.

And then we get to watch the Irish tray bring us together—to help us remember life’s greatest privilege:
To love beyond our imagination, to find our why.

The Irish Tray Theory says this:
When you embrace the accidents that let you be fully, absurdly, authentically you,
what’s meant for you will never miss you.

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