I used to pray to God when I was in 6th or 7th grade. I'd pray for very selfish reasons like "Make Nick like me" or "Please let me be popular", shit like that. But it was praying all the same, and I really believed there was a God up there listening. I grew out of that for a little while during High School. I found out what Agnostic meant and decided that was what I was. I believed in a God, but not a specific one, and when my first experience with real unrequited love made its appearance, I was back to praying.
By the end of Junior year, I hated God. My life was in pieces, and because I didn't want to just blame myself, I blamed God. I stopped praying, and eventually, I stopped believing. I turned into a full-fledged Atheist, cynicism and all. Even when my prayers were answered in the middle of summer, I stuck to my guns and still did not believe in a God. And I wouldn't for a couple years after that.
I don't know when I finally decided there was some kind of a Divine force again, but I'm guessing it was sometime last fall, or maybe even in the summer. In any case, I was not back to praying, but I was back to believing in something; not necessarily God, or a God, or many Gods, and not exactly Buddha, but I definitely put all my faith into karma. And I started to view the last 3 years of my life as payback for all the manipulative shit I had done to someone in particular. I wore this poor boy down, killed his spirit, and then asked for more. I know everyone thinks he was so horrible to me, but if you heard even half the conversations we had, you would hate me, too. So when I realized I was basically in the doghouse as far as karma goes, I decided I was going to try and put as much kindness out there as I could. I thought that would resolve it. I thought then ideally, I would be, well, saved, for lack of a better word.
But even though I was putting all this kindness out there, I still felt tortured. Things were still not exactly working, my life was still in shambles, and I kept feeling so neglected. Things would still happen to me that just seemed so unnecessary, and I knew it was payback for what I'd done, but it was still just as hurtful. A lot of the things had to do with that poor boy and unfortunate meetings. When he came home for spring break, I ran into him very unexpectedly and it was awful. Not just once, but several times, each more painful than the next. I finally accepted it and by the time he left, it was ok, but I was still shook up and definitely did not want to see him when summer rolled around.
Well, summer has now rolled around, and he is back. I went to my alma mater's graduation the other day and had such a strong feeling that I would see him there. I was extremely alert the whole time, because I knew that once I let my guard down and forgot about it, that would be the moment I would see him. It never happens when you expect it to. So I kept an eye out the entire time, scanning the crowds for him, making sure he wasn't there. And...he wasn't. He hadn't showed. I was in the clear. I went to greet all my friends who'd graduated and took several pictures and finally relaxed. I was invited to a graduation party, but opted to go home instead. I was going to get a ride with my friend Trevor, but then we realized that his car was actually probably further away than my house, so I walked with him a little ways to the corner of Seaward and Poli. As soon as we reached the corner, I looked at the white truck sitting there diagonally waiting to turn onto Seaward and lost all my breath. It was him. We made eye contact, but then I abruptly looked away, hugged Trevor good bye and began walking as fast as I could down Seaward. He turned onto Seaward and drove right past me. I almost threw a fit. I went that entire ceremony without seeing him, there were hundreds of people there and he wasn't one, but then I decide to walk this certain way at this exact moment and I see him. I fucking see him. If I had talked to Toby for another minute, if I had walked a different way, if I'd tripped and fallen, I would've missed him, I would not have seen him, but for some reason those events fell into order and there he was. At the moment I least expected it, there he was.
As soon as that happened, I looked up and cried out, "Are we even yet?!" I was sick of this bullshit. Who does that happen to? No one. I wanted to know if my payback was over, if this madness would end. Cuz I have been giving and giving and giving for quite some time now, just trying to make it all even and balanced, and yet I'm still tortured with that. I walked home as fast as I could with watery eyes, just really wanting to punch something or someone. It was awful.
The next day I went for a walk and thought about the events that had happened the day before. I silently asked Karma if we were even yet, and if so, to give me a sign. The wind actually picked up a little bit at that point, but I didn't know how to interpret that, so I ignored it.
The day after, I was still searching for a sign, still silently asking. I knew it would come to me when I least expected it [as most things do], so I tried really hard to forget about it.
I was talking with Toby later that night and decided to get a small snack. Well, when we visited my Nana on Tuesday, she sent us home with a huge stash of fortune cookies. Since that was all we had in our house basically, that didn't require microwaves or toaster ovens or anything like that, I grabbed one and then went back into my room to finish my conversation with Toby. I opened up the fortune cookie and ate the half that didn't have the fortune in it, wondering if fortune cookies go stale [they do], and then when I was done eating the one side, I pulled out my fortune. This what it read:
"From now on your kindness will lead you to success."
I sat there and smiled and stared at it for about 10 seconds. Toby asked me what was wrong, and I tried to explain this entire story to him, but it's a hard one to tell.
I don't want to say that was my sign from God, but I think it was a sign of some sort, a sign I needed anyway. And the events fit together all too well for it to really be anything else. I always leave a door open for coincidence however, and I don't think I will ever be truly persuaded to lean one way or another. Even when I was "Atheist" I always left a door open for faith.
So that's my story, and that's where I stand.
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