Once Upon A Time

There was a girl entering her last four months of school ever. She had just finished her big 9-5 internship and gotten a return offer to be in Los Angeles in 2027. She had lived with two strangers turned friends in a city apartment, she had traveled to Spain to get lost for all of the ten days she had between her internship and school, and now she is desperately trying to keep every single feeler out while she gets pulled in the three directions of Dallas, LA, and Barcelona.

Louise Hay once described abundance as everyone in the world being able to stand at the shore of the ocean, grab a bucket, and fill it to the brim while the ocean remains completely intact. I think this means when we are abundant, we are taking in every ounce of what the world meant for us and only us. Nothing more, nothing less.

That girl is me, and today I'm in the midst of yet another transition. Is my life just all commas at this point? I haven't settled into a period in a while. I'm thinking about all the ways I want to root myself before I'm pulled out of the ground yet again in December for Spain. To do this, I have a sacred ritual of taking out my "She Believed She Could So She Did" journal, where I keep the non negotiables for every sector of my life laid out but malleable.

The last page was almost exactly a year ago. Seems like I have a knack for timing, or this season is just incredibly good at making you fear you have none of your shit together. And it was all about how to let Barcelona go to be fully present in Dallas. I was pleased to see that all I asked of myself, which was simply fifteen different ways of writing be where your feet are, I did accomplish. But I was also perplexed to see that a year later I'm still figuring out how to safely detach, and how to let go of the parts of myself and members of my heart I'm leaving all over the world.

You see, Louise, I have filled my bucket to the brim, but I have stood on three different shores to do so. I am wondering if my buckets of abundance are spilling over because I'm lugging them with me to different ends of the world. And maybe, just maybe, if I filled up the buckets of LA and Barcelona and, dare I say, left them there for a little while, I could learn to be okay with going back for them.

Because, Louise? My three homes are starting to merge, and Barcelona still has my heart. But I think, maybe even I know, that if I let those buckets rest where I filled them, and let my heart keep the pulse of the memories while it beats to Dallas's drum, this could be really good. Really special.

And then, and only then, I can, you know, maybe do this ritual when I go to Barcelona in December, and LA in August. And I can digest with my whole being that everything has its time and place.

I was born in the arms of imaginary friends
Free to roam, made a home out of everywhere I've been
Then you come crashing in, like the realest thing
Trying my best to understand all that your love can bring

Because if I recognize this total, strange, ever-present abundance as the sole bucket of Dallas, I will die over the fact that I'm dancing and choreographing in the same show. That the piece I'm dancing is about a connection with Jesus, and I'm coming off of a summer where the Witch of Dallas told me He's looking for me with a purple flame, and a May where my grandmother handed me a mini Jesus, pressed into her hands by a stranger in an airport, wearing a purple sash that read "Guide Me Lord."

And that I'm choreographing to "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing," a song my uncle produced and played the piano on, and he told me today that he met my aunt the night he decided to take it on. Perfectly explaining the generational magic behind Mr. International coming to me with the words, "You remind me of an American song: I Don't Wanna Miss a Thing."

And then there's everything else. Spain Dances is coming back to Dallas. Netflix is loving my reality show idea. SMU wants to sponsor my book. A tango dancer is teaching me international finance, an Austrian is teaching me derivatives, and my new ballet teacher, a killer, and I really deliberately chose that word, just got back from Hungary. My first column event awakened my community so deeply that I was asked for an autograph. And I finally understand my schoolwork because I understand its place outside of school, and I can bank (get it) on the total peace of being employed after graduation.

In thinking of my abundant bucket, my ocean, my well, the waves of life, I want to paint you a picture of how thirty minutes of staring at the ocean, at abundance, can change your existence.

During my ten days in Spain, I asked every single day to go to the Cala of my dreams. Mr. International found it for me when we got redirected from Ibiza. But whether it pissed off our friends or me, without fail, no matter how excited I was, I was overtaken by jet lag each day we tried to go.

Finally, I promised to go Tuesday, but the Spanish time zone of how long it takes to play padel, swim for a bit, and eat five courses brought us to 4 pm. Then Mr. International just had to invite our new friends over and give them an apartment tour, one that involved him showing them how to use every single one of his Airsoft weapons, even the grenade that flew into our bathroom.

By 6 pm, I was crying yet again because I wasn't going to make it to this beach. With the sun waning, I couldn't believe it when I saw Mr. International pick up his helmet and start walking downstairs, laughing to himself. We drove, excuse me, he drove, three whole hours to take me to this beach for thirty minutes, film me walking through every inch of the out of this world Game of Thrones rock formation that lets you walk on water, and run into the sea holding me under the moonlight. I'll never forget those thirty minutes for as long as I live.

Sometimes you can't get everyone in the world to the shore. Sometimes you can't even get all of your tribe on the same shore. Sometimes you can get to a couple of different shores in a year. Sometimes you go a whole year without one. Sometimes you can only get yourself.

And in those rare times, you can get you and the person you love most, hand in hand, to look out into strange and total abundance, even for thirty minutes, and realize a whole life can be lived inside one full moment of filling the bucket right where your feet are. Forgetting about the drive home. Forgetting about the drive there. And knowing that if you only had now, there would be no problem at all.

Oh, half of my heart's got a grip on the situation
Half of my heart takes time
Half of my heart's got a right mind to tell you
That I can't keep loving you (Can't keep loving you)
Oh, with half of my heart