A Man, A Plan, A Canal — Trust

So I’ve been getting a message about trust.

Last week has been… a transition. The week before, after all my dance breakthroughs and the culmination of my Washington State internship—my final Creative Real Estate Wiki presentation to twenty-five Washington powerhouses with more experience in government than years I’ve been alive—I couldn’t have felt more expansive. Or more certain that nothing could shake that feeling.

But of course, all good things do. So Tuesday was the beginning of it all.

In forty short seconds, as I read the email from the Brazilian government saying my visa photo wasn’t approved because I smiled (I’m sorry, I was excited my long-distance relationship was ending—hello?), everything collapsed. And I say let it because I’m realizing I have more power than I thought in how fast I fall (and how fast I rise, more on that to come).

And just like that, the same energy I credit for my ability to feel deeply, create divinely, and live artistically became a permission slip for the worst spiral of all time (wow, it even exists in that exaggeration).

Within the next couple of hours, I got the most heinous grade on my finance project—a class where I’d been coasting on a cloud grade-wise.

At this point, things were looking really grim. I wasn’t even sure if I’d make it to Brazil at all, based on the emails telling me to allow ten days before my flight for processing—I had four. Everything I had left “for later” suddenly started demanding attention now.

So Wednesday morning, I had no choice but to press the big red button: call my life coach.

Together, we engaged in sorcery to get me to Brazil and realized this deeply true fact: nothing good happens for me when I can’t be still.

I realized I’d been carrying more stress and anxiety than normal. While I’m still achieving results, it’s the journey there that I haven’t been living as much.

The exact opposite of the gift Jacob gave me while creating the museum piece. The exact opposite of what allowed me to improv like I was plugged into something divine. The exact opposite of David’s words: “Don’t let your thoughts slow you down.”

I wasn’t intellectualizing life—I was in it. There were no blockages. And that openness changed everything.

Which is why it was so funny that earlier that morning I’d heard a guy talk about realizing his dad couldn’t hear his air fryer beeping anymore. Ridiculous. And somehow… profound. We miss things—signs, clues, truths—when we’re not attuned to their frequency.

And when I clear a path? Life meets me there. I literally told my life coach, “Life feels like a long winding road right now to get to results.” She said, “That doesn’t sound like you at all.” And without thinking (key), I said, “Yeah, I feel like I’d find the quickest, straightest road.”

So naturally… we talked about trust.

I haven’t talked much about it: long distance. Honestly, it’s been really wonderful, and I know you don’t hear that much. Is it ideal to be a continent away from your person? No. But does harmony, connection, growth, and most importantly presence still exist? Absolutely.

I truly think long distance has given me the space to create harmony with Mr. International. Because we met at this specific time in life, we’ve had to be observers of each other’s worlds. When I was in Barcelona for the end of summer, my only obligation was to travel, dance, model, and write. Awesome life? Yes. Real life? No. And what’s the slow death of any relationship? An inaccurate expectation of reality, an idea of something, not its true form.

And when he came to America? Poor thing was car-less, the first man to walk the streets of Dallas.

In distance, we’ve been given this beautiful gift of doing our own thing so we can be truly in harmony when we meet again.

And there’s deeper beauty here. We are never promised a new day together. Every time both our schedules open and resources align, it is a God-given gift—a wink from the universe.

So that’s why today was so… hard.

I got to the airport with three printed copies of my approved Brazil visa, ready to have my first drama-free international travel day in history. And yet the anxiety was unreal. It felt like all the trust I’d built had been replaced with terror. I thought maybe I was just nervous to see him, how cute! Except, no. I was terrified I wouldn’t get to.

Everything seemed fine at first, they barely even looked at the visa. I boarded the plane. And then: chaos.

For the first time, I’m barely exaggerating—our plane got stuck on the runway in Dallas for two hours. The exact amount of time I had for my Miami layover to get to Rio.

Tension rises, passengers get restless, and finally the stewardess cracks and tells us what’s happening. Someone on board said something that made a crew member uncomfortable, and because no one would come forward as a witness, the police had to be called. Suddenly we were all twelve again. And I missed my flight to Rio because no one wanted to be a tattletale.

And when I already see every step toward Mr. International as a sign, you better believe I also see every step back as a cosmic slap. Especially when the next flight would put me right into his sister’s wedding speech, the event that brought us back to the same coordinates.

Love makes fools and prophets out of us all.

So here I am, alone in a Miami hotel room, cursing the universe for this test of trust but also… weirdly excited to see just how much I can trust her.

And in this quiet surrender, she reveals that the only flight that gets me there before the vows reroutes me to Panama.

Which means I finally get to use my favorite palindrome. Because everything truly is backwards right now, but somehow still spelling out its own meaning in every direction you read it.

Look how iconic this is:

How did I get to Panama? Oh, just:

A man, a plan, a canal — Panama.

Maybe that’s the point of all of this.
Trust isn’t earned in hindsight; it’s practiced in real time.
You live the process, you don’t only make peace with it once you can read it all backwards.