I almost went to California instead, I felt like the universe was telling me to go. I’m telling this to the longhaired mushroom farmer beside me as we stand waist-deep in a cold Boulder creek. We had met 243 miles and 10 days before and stood now speaking of fate and adventure, cold water rushing past. “I was half asleep in the middle of the night, and I heard this voice say, ‘If you’re in California, you’re on the right track.’” His face lights up upon hearing this, as if confirming this was indeed a divine calling.

It startled me awake—that voice I heard. It felt so outside of myself. There was no part of me that wanted to start my van life journey in California, leaving the entirety of the country behind me. It felt like backtracking, a retrogression, having already spent almost half my life there.

So I needed to know: where had that voice come from? Was it some part of my subconscious, or if it was indeed divine ordinance, fate? Whose orders would I be going against if I continued on with my eastward plans?

Subconscious, I decided, which happened to coincide nicely with my personal agenda of being in Colorado for fall.

But signs for California kept appearing: my friend wanting to take a caravan trip through the state, an annual conference I was expected to attend happening there, multiple friends up and down the state. Plus, I kept hearing songs that referenced California. Walking out of a store to Coconut Records singing, I miss you; I’m going back home to the West Coast…

Does the universe speak to us in signs? Should you trust in them enough to completely change course?

No, I decided. I’d still head east. But the weekend before I left, late into the night of my best friend’s wedding, I sat at a table with a guy from Mississippi who believed everything was a sign—that I should listen to that voice telling me to go to California, and the westward road reopened yet again.

I feared missing out on fate. I actually obsess over this, that the universe has a specific path for me to take and any other path only distances me from it. Perhaps the universe was telling me to go to California where some timely opportunity was waiting and I’d forever miss out if I didn’t go right now!

So with only a few days before I was to leave, I suspended my Colorado plans and began planning logistics for California. It wasn’t as smooth as I expected, what with the universe’s direct orders and all. Campgrounds were booked out, everything more expensive, longer drives, etc. Sticking to Colorado was so much cheaper, so much easier…

So I headed east after all, the setting sun falling behind the desert horizon as I drove through New Mexico and on to Colorado. Durango and Telluride, Gunnison and Paonia, Aspen and Breckenridge, Denver and then Boulder, standing there in my Crocs next to the longhaired mushroom farmer I had met back in Paonia, our paths crossing in that way that feels like fate.

In the creek I asked him: is there such a thing as a right path?

“Yes,” he answered, so certain, so definitive.

“There is? How do you know, then, whether you’re on the right path or not?”

“You know because there’s an ease to it. Things work out; things flow.”

In Taoism it’s known as wu-wei: effortless action, the path of least-resistence. I hadn’t before thought of it as fate, that maybe that was all fate was. Maybe the right path was just finding contentment, ease, acceptance. Making decisions and being at peace with yourself.

Later, drying and warming from the cold, we sat in my van drinking tea, and the quotes on both our tea bags said: “Many paths lead to the same destination; it doesn’t matter how you get there.”

I made it to California after all, months later, finishing most of this post amongst palm trees and snow-dusted mountains. I’ve come to see that fate isn’t as strict and unyielding as I had feared it to be. There is what is within your control and what is outside of it, but there is also what you decide to do about it all, and that’s where the magic is.

There are so many ways our lives could have gone, and still could go.

I was almost a cop (I love telling people this). I worked as a police cadet through college and found this path laid before me to become a police officer. But after failing the lie detector test on account of typical college debauchery, I landed instead in office work.

I moved to New York City, then to Nashville, then to Dallas, then to Phoenix.

My friend became an engineer by walking into the wrong building at freshmen orientation and being too self-conscious to leave.

All the people we could have become, all the places we could have stayed, all the lives we could have lived. Is it fate or free will that brings us to where we stand now?

Should I have gone to California? Did I miss out on something by not going there first? The answer came to me as this: there are no shoulds or shouldn’ts in life. There is only what is and what you decide to do about it.

It’s empowering and liberating and wondrous, that we have such autonomy within the grandeur of the universe, the freedom to dance our own dance to the beat of the cosmos. We don’t have to leave fate up to the world around us. Go confidently through desert sunsets, fate will always find you.

Leaving Phoenix, I was worried my van wouldn’t make it up the first mountain to Payson. I was worried I would be stranded only a couple of hours away, halfway up a mountain, no service, still among the pale dirt and scattered cacti.

I called my Dad multiple times to ask if things were normal: the slowness, the shaking, the gears. Yes, yes, yes. Drive slow. Take it easy. Be good to Vanny and Vanny will be good to you. Enjoy the ride.

It strikes me now—being told to enjoy myself. Of course I want to enjoy myself—I always want to enjoy myself. Why was I not enjoying myself?

I wasn’t used to being the slowest car on the road—slower than all the semis. And I still don’t know where my hazards are (hazards are a resignation, an acceptance of your fate as a slow driver).

Seeing the cars pile up behind me, worrying about their impatience and frustration, what they thought of me—or, feeling like I ought to be going faster than I was, on account of others. It was my concern and comparison to others that was getting in the way of enjoying myself. That malignant outward shift of focus which deprives us contentedness and enjoyment.

I drove a long time that first day—longer than any of the days since. Six hours to get out of Arizona, which, like dog years, ought to be multiplied to account for the amplified stress and mental work it is to drive the van.

Driving through a barren western New Mexican town, I passed a farm stand with a dirt-coated pickup truck pulling in. A sign read “Kneel Down Bread: 5/25.” I wanted to stop, but I drove past it too quickly. I thought about turning around, but the van felt like this big, heavy, inexorable thing. I felt I didn’t have time, though, of course, all I had was time. Shortly after, life afforded me a second chance: another stand for kneel down bread appeared on my right. But still, I didn’t stop. A big unwieldy thing, chugging along, eastward bound, fixed and determined.

I made it to Durango, the first city. There was the first hike in the morning when I let Remi off the leash, walked amongst the tall pines, gray jagged rocks and dark brown soil—and I felt so free; it felt so right. There was a group of students at some of the rock formations, an instructor with them—climbing class.

I wanted to work from a coffee shop, a roasterie, on the edge of town. I found parking on a hill, a view of the city below. I rested there for some time and never ended up going inside—too tired or wanting to save money, I can’t recall. I drove instead to the historic downtown, stopping at an AutoZone on the way to fix a brake light. The AutoZone employee was tall and skinny, older with grit. He loved Durango, he told me, he visited his uncle here 10 or so years ago and never left.

Though it was quite ordinary and unremarkable, I think often of that moment in the van on the edge of town. It was beautiful—how the late morning light filtered in, how the city below was so sweetly frosted with potential. I wasn’t in Durango long enough. I left the city unexplored.

It’s been hard to get the pacing right: how long to spend in each place. It’s an allowance, a permission, how much time to afford yourself. There’s always a new destination to go to: the promise of the next best thing.

There’s also the hustle mentality: the cultural mistruth that productivity correlates to your worth. When I have the energy, I spend it on what I deem to be most productive for my business: listing, thrifting, filming content, planning the next destination. It’s hard for me to slow down, sit still, to take it all in. To meditate, reflect on the experiences, to create, to enjoy.

I’ve thought often of that kneel down bread, how I’ll never know what it tastes like. I Googled it (like a Native American tamale) and tell myself I’ll find some to try another time, and maybe I will. But of course, another time doesn’t exist—there is only now.

My friend recently posted a beautiful blog post where he says every step we take is a new page, and do you know how easy it is to mindlessly read paragraphs of a page without absorbing them? He notes: with a book, you’re able to go back and reread what you missed, but with life, you are not.

All of life is happening only in this very moment—we aren’t guaranteed another stop for local bread up the road, and we can never reread the paragraphs we missed in our absentmindedness. All we can do is slow down and enjoy the ride.

I used to chase sunsets. I’d set off on evening walks—past a school with a big field brightly lit with stadium lights, groups of children playing softball or lacrosse. I would take the second right through a tree-lined neighborhood with houses pushed back by courtyards enclosing palm trees and pools you could steal an occasional glance at. Past a school playground, down one more street, until reaching a shady park with soft, dark grass on sloping hills, a pond with families of ducks in the middle of it.

This was the best place to catch the sunset—especially the park’s entrance where the full vibrancy of the coral and orange rays would glide down from the setting sun and reflect upon the water. A warm, darkening glow cast on all below.

I would time my walks just right to witness it. And if I got a later start, I would hurry to the park—quickly moving past the bright field, the trees, the courtyards, until, reaching the park, I’d wonder Is this it? Did I make it in time?

How long was it until I realized there was beauty all around to experience? The golden hues cast on the shimmering green leaves hanging above. The pastel colors brushed across the eastern sky behind me, how the silhouettes of palm trees looked against it. What other magic did I leave behind?

I heard once something like, “How you spend right now is how you spend your life.” Rushing to the park would diminish my experience of the sunset, just as rushing to the next chapter in life leaves us continually wanting something else, never fully appreciating the present moment.

Where are you rushing to right now? The next chapter, the bigger house, the career trajectory, next year’s travels. What beauty and joy are you leaving behind as you hurry on ahead?

I still find myself pulled in to the rushing current of productivity and accomplishment—one’s worth often being defined by such. This morning, as I was getting ready for my walk, I felt myself hurrying through things, worried I would miss the unfolding of the sunrise outside. And so I’ll pause—inhale deeply, exhale, three times. I’ll force myself to slow, to be present, to be here now.

Beauty and joy are always here waiting for you. Hanging in the trees overhead, their confetti leaves dancing in the warm breeze, shimmying in the cooling summer nights. Resting on delicate colored flower petals with points like soft stars. In the mountains beyond you, their depth with particular hue of purple-blue and darkened shadows cast by their determined edges. In the clouds behind—their soft, gently painted strokes across the sky, the way the sun speaks quietly between them, whispering softly. Beauty and joy are all around, residing only in the here and now.

For after the sunrise, after the promotion, the vacation, the family, the bonus, the new house—after everything you have been hoping for and working towards passes, and the sun and all its radiance tucks itself below the horizon, all you have left is yourself and the stillness of the moment.

I used to send my breakup texts at 5:55. It started as a bit of a coincidence. I had one drafted, ready to send, but, dreading the disappointment, the disturbance, the disruption of forward course, I was stalling.

Seeing 5:55 approaching and loving such alluring ideas as signs and fate, I looked up the 555 angel number: signifying a significant change, perhaps in relationships or career; encouraging you to embrace the change, to trust that it is leading you to a better, truer future.

Oh, how we love a sign. We yearn for it, seek it out, patiently wait for it. We want reassurance, cosmic confirmation. Something to tell us we are on the right path, all is going according to plan.

We have an innate desire to cling to meaning, to conjure it up from what is inherently meaningless: a rainbow in the sky, the planets aligning a certain way, the clock displaying a certain sequence of numbers. Apophenia is what it’s called, our propensity to draw meaning out of everyday occurrences.

I had read an article on apophenia, and it came to mind recently on walks around my mom’s neighborhood. I kept seeing feathers on the ground—every time I looked down it seemed. So many that it felt like something special, something significant. I thought of a woman quoted in the article who said she saw three or four or five or a lot of feathers on her walk earlier that day and knew it was a sign she was on the right path.

Apophenia—harmless, natural, though as it turns out, birds shed their feathers at certain times of the year, one being the end of breeding season in late summer, and this is why I was seeing so many.

But does having a scientific name for a thing make it any less magical, any less real?

Despite my awareness of this psychological propensity, my peering behind the curtain, I still love to indulge in it. Why shouldn’t we afford ourselves the luxury of believing everything is happening for a reason? That it’s all going according to some grand and beautiful and transcendental plan?

I realize now that it is our own meaning we ascribe to everyday occurrences. We wait for a sign outside of ourselves, and yet it is our inner knowing that we are projecting. We are waiting to be told what we already know. When you feel you are on the right path, you’ll find signs to confirm it, and when it is time to leave, you’ll find signs to tell you such. We know all along, don’t we? And yet we still wait, we falter.

I had been wanting to leave Phoenix for quite some time, waiting for a sign for nearly three years. When do you know it’s time to leave? I wondered.

Is it after you’ve indulged in the anticipation of believing the next best thing could be about to happen, seeing that through across vibrant coral sunsets, families of ducks resting upon ponds reflecting the setting sun?

Is it after you’ve processed and grieved the laden change? After making a sincere effort for concordance? Seeking harmony through the right relationship, the right space, the right job, the right community. Farmers’ markets and rocky hikes, ocotillos and saguaros, weekend trips and Northern Arizona pines.

When do you know it’s time to leave? What sign do you look for? I wondered.

I had felt a kind of inertia in Dallas that I hadn’t in Phoenix—stillness, ease, contentment. It’s something like that. The sign is within us, our inner knowing, though we often desensitize ourselves to it. We pacify and numb our true and deep desires until they are only a quiet whisper, a second guess, a distancing, fading, crazy idea.

But it’s always there, always willing to reveal itself if you quiet yourself and listen. Shh… do you hear it? It’s a knowing. A quiet and encompassing knowing that we must learn to trust and act upon. Emboldened not by the numbers on a clock or a feather on the ground, but by the resounding peace it bestows.

You don’t have to wait for the right sign, the right moment, the right time. Quiet yourself, tune in to your inner voice, sometimes closely, sometimes patiently. Listen, feel, and know.

I have been working on self-love, self-acceptance. It’s new for me—my having to work on it, something that had come so naturally just a few years ago.

We grow and change, grow and change, and I had grown into this version of myself I really loved being. Happy, confident, carefree. I adored this version, became attached to it, feircely clung to it for the past three years.

I must address the body image of it all—how much of our self-identity can become entangled in our physical reflection, how hard this can be to unravel, to see and love ourselves beyond our physical nature.

I fought for a long time—still fight—to bring my current physical state closer to what it was a few years ago. I struggle to accept weight gain and body change.

I remind myself it is not just the physical reflection I miss—it is the feelings, the state of being. The ease, the love, the joy. The freedom of existing without feeling that I should exist in a different way, that how I am showing up is not enough, not as it should be. I miss that.

And so it is what I work on now, as I exist now. Here and now, all there ever is and will be. If there is no love, no joy, no freedom or peace in the here and now, then there never will be.

They say to first work on self-acceptance. To see yourself as you are here and now and accept it. This is me now—a sort of indifference. Practice cultivating the feelings you miss from that past version of yourself. I am reminded again: it is not just the physical nature I miss, it is the feelings.

I miss the ease of being being happy and confident in my own skin. And it wasn’t because I had reached some arbitrary weight or size. It was because I had total acceptance of who I was.

I remember taking a photo a few years ago, seated on a booth at a brunch spot in Mission Beach with my closest friends. It was a beautiful morning and a beautiful trip filled with love and laughter and ease, and my cocktail, garnished with a big tropical flower and a bendy straw, was creamy and delicious.

I snapped a photo holding the cocktail, my bare thighs in cut-off shorts at the bottom of the frame, and I remember hesitating a moment before sharing it on my Instagram story: Do my thighs look big? I remember the complete ease of how quickly that thought passed, how easy it was to remain unbothered by it and think instead: This is how I look. I am happy with myself, and these are my thighs, so I posted it.

I haven’t felt that way for some time now—not long after my divorce and move to Phoenix, until which I had a pretty healthy relationship with food. I would allow myself to indulge when I wanted and would treat myself regularly (still a big proponent of that), all with the philosophy that everything balanced out. I did 30-minute home workouts consistently and—or rather, because I enjoyed them.

I believed, after the move, that life would carry on as usual and things would balance out, though my whole life had changed—I had the post-breakup stint of late nights, drinking, eating out. I noticed weight gain and fought it. I did the Hard 75. I took the ZOE test kit to understand my blood sugar response (bad) and fat level response (good). I trained for a half-marathon (still on the to-do list).

And I can’t recall if there were any times when I felt happy and at peace with myself through that period.

Showing up on social media, I had a self-consciousness that I had never had before. I would angle my face a certain way; I would take multiple takes; I would pose with a kiss rather than a smile, thinking it made my face look slimmer. I was so resistant, so scared to show up as anything other than the skinny, confident, happy version of myself I was now feeling at odds with.

It felt like a defeat; I was scared of not being accepted, but really, it was a self-projection of my own lack of acceptance of my current self. For the first time, I was not allowing myself to show up as I was.

I’ve never been one for diets, but I remember doing this quite unsustainable eat-as-little-as-possible diet towards the end of 2023. I lost weight, though I didn’t return to that state of self-acceptance, peace and ease, love and freedom I was truly seeking.

It was around that time that I decided to take a month off Instagram. Since creating my reselling Instagram back in 2018, I had posted almost daily. I took a month off and couldn’t bring myself to resume and carry on as I had been. I ghosted everyone, which is what a friend joked when she brought up my absence on it.

The problem was I was coming at it backward: self-love, thinking that I would find it once reaching a certain size. So I’ve had to start over. It’s taken a while. It’s taking a while.

It’s first realizing I’ll never be exactly as I was before the divorce, not in any capacity. The inevitable growth and change. A friend told me recently, sharing pastries and sipping lattes at a coffee shop in Central Phoenix, it’s natural to grieve your past selves. She would sometimes grieve her past self who was single, taking photos and about to convert her Kia Soul to travel and live in.

I’ve grieved both my past self and my past life. The simplicity, the happiness, the ease. But the magic of the moment lies in the complete acceptance of the present, the here and now. Those are the days. That is when, later on, you look back and think, I was so happy then. The moment you yearn for that is the moment it’s lost.

Love is a deep knowing. It is intimacy. It is an acceptance of that knowing. To explore yourself, know all of your desires, your fears, your dreams, your wishes, your hopes, likes, and imperfections, and to be at peace with them. To surrender, to allow. That is self-love.