Once Upon A Time

There was a girl entering her last 4 months of school ever. She just finished her big 9-5 internship and got a return offer to be in Los Angeles in 2027, she lived with two strangers turned friends in a city apartment, she traveled to Spain to get lost for all of the 10 days she had between her internship and school, and she is desperately trying to have every single feeler out while she gets pulled in the 3 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. In layman's terms, 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.

So 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 now. I'm thinking about all the ways I want to attempt 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 15 different ways of writing be where your feet are, I did accomplish. But also perplexed to see that a year later I'm still figuring out how to safely detach, and how to let go of 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 rim, 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 + 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 in their merging, Dallas has my right arm, LA my left, and Barcelona my heart. And I just think, well, maybe even I know, that if my arms were let go and they both fell forward into Dallas right now, and my heart kept the pulse of the memories but beat to Dallas's drum, that 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 Wanna Miss a Thing;” my uncle just revealed to me today that he met my aunt the night he decided to create the song. 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."

Spain Dances is coming back to Dallas. Netflix is loving my reality TV show idea. I am writing a book that SMU wants to sponsor.

I have wonderful teachers. A poet-songwriter is teaching me creative writing and a tango dancer is teaching me international finance. I have a killer, and I really deliberately chose that word, new ballet teacher who was just in Hungary and an Austrian teaching me derivatives.

I understand my schoolwork now because I understand its place outside of school, and I can bank (get it) on the total peace that I am employed post-grad.

But even better, I am moving to Europe to try employment there as well in my gap semester. I have a Dallas fan event coming up because my first column event awakened my community so deeply I was asked for an autograph.

And in thinking of my abundant bucket, my ocean, my well, the waves of life, I want to paint you a picture of how 30 minutes of staring at the ocean, at abundance, can change your existence.

During my 10 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. However, whether it pissed me or our friends off, without fail, no matter my wretched excitement, 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 paddle, swim for a bit, and eat 5 courses brought us to 4pm. Then Mr. International just had to invite our new friends over, 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 6pm, I was crying yet again—no, I literally was—that 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 3 whole hours to take me to this beach for 30 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 that 30-minute memory 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 30 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