My Purpose

Happy accidents happen on any day, at any time. There’s no way to be prepared or even get all dolled up to greet them. That’s the spark, the beauty they bring with them, they just pop out of nowhere. No sign, no warning. I myself have encountered these sudden joys plenty of times. But I must say that one of the best ones have been the ones I’ve manifested without even trying to. 

Living in a small town comes easy, you learn to appreciate the expected, you learn to love the familiar, the typical aspect of it all. If there’s something the unexciting Norton, Virginia has taught me, is that a coincidence is never just that. Let me explain. 

I’m the small-town girl everyone loves. I keep to myself, I work at the local bakery, I try and educate myself with what’s going in the world, miles away from the one I live in. It’s easy, really. Existing is easy enough, now actually feel like you’re living and fulfilling a purpose way beyond the expectations you have for yourself? That’s a whole different story. 

You see, I feel comfortable. But on a random day, I’ll feel like I’ve accomplished nothing other than the bare minimum expected from me. Do I want to be a successful entrepreneur? Not really. Do I want to be the youngest billionaire? Not at all. But do I want to make a difference? Hell yeah, I do. I’ve always wanted to. But the question that’s always kept me up at night, was: how?

I remember seeing everyone at high school graduation, longing, hoping, sparks in their eyes. So sure of how they were going to make a difference, a dent in the world. But me? I never really knew. I wasn’t even sure what I liked doing. But everyone around me had it all figured out. Seven years have passed since that day and I still struggle to define who I am and what I do to make the world a better place. 

In every movie I’d watch, people would always have an amazing talent or gift. I remember watching The Cheetah Girls one night and me trying to sing one of the songs while recording my voice, to actually play myself back and see if that was the talent I hadn’t yet identified within myself. To answer your question, no, my talent is most definitely not singing. 

I would do this with every new thing I’d see people were excelling at. I’d try it myself, wait until someone said something about it or nothing at all. I would eventually have my answer. Either way, living in a secluded town didn’t help my cause. So I traveled, I traveled the world and back, I saw, I documented, I made friends, I meditated, I dreamt. 

I was everywhere and nowhere at all, all at the same damn time. I was so lost and I still feel lost most of the time. Whenever something goes great I’m unstoppable, I’m on top of the world, I walk with a trot, I even speak differently. But when something goes wrong I’m nothing. I’m barely there. I’m just an empty vessel for a soul that’s on pause until things are looking up once again. 

One day I was just feeling so alone. So I wrote down the way I felt and the reasons why I was feeling that way, I typed until my fingers bled and the keyboard was no longer cream-colored. I wrote about everything I hated about myself, all the sadness I had been through, all the obstacles that continued to path my way, and all the pain I had endured and continued to do so. I wrote only sad things. Because at the end of the day, there was nothing good to write about.

I kept on going for months, which then turned into years of sad writings, poems, short moments of my day. I published all my pain for the internet to see. I just didn’t care anymore. One day I showed my mom one of my short stories, the first short story I’d ever written. She proceeded to cry and tell me it was actually really good. I can’t even remember what it was about. 

I then asked my dad to gift me a book written by Rupi Kaur. I cried throughout the whole book, it’s stained with my tears to this very day. It was then, after reading and re-reading the pain so many others managed to paste into books, short stories, and essays, that I found out I could do the exact same. That was the very first time I found purpose in all of my pain. All the suffering, all those years of sadness, all the thoughts that would keep me up at night could finally serve a purpose way beyond my wildest expectations. 

This synchronicity of this chain of events didn’t come as a revelation, it wasn’t immediate by any means, it took years of self-reflection, misery, wondering, pondering, why I wasn’t good enough, why I wasn’t gifted any talent. What was I supposed to do in a world where everyone is so unique? So different? So special? I came to realize everything takes time. Getting to know the beauty of who I am took years of self-doubting and not feeling good enough to even exist. 

And no, I wasn’t ready for it. It’s not like I studied creative writing in college, or that I published a book that sold thousands of copies overnight. I just started writing short stories on Instagram and realized that I was good with words. That I had a way of sharing my emotions and many people within my generation could relate to the way I was feeling at the time. I wasn’t waiting for my prize at the podium, I wasn’t aware that people were reading what I wrote, I didn’t even think there could be a meaning behind my words. But there was.  

But the perfect time is just that, perfect. Everything takes its own shape and form. Everything falls into place as you would imagine. Everything aligned itself at the moment I needed it most, turns out my gift, my passion had always been there knocking at my door, showing itself through my writing and the words I was dying to get out but wouldn’t, in fear of seeming pathetic. So for those who are struggling, those who feel like their own ship is being steered by fate, I am still one of you. And I promise you have a purpose nobody else can fulfill.