Ireland made me feel lucky: the luck of the Irish, some would say. I think this trip finally woke me up to the fact that I do have it pretty good, and that maybe someone up there really is watching out for me. My (our) luck never seemed to run dry during the trip, even when we seemingly tried hard to throw everything in the face of luck to foil it. I have never been so acutely aware of how things all sort of just work out for me in the end. Consequently I was never aware of, nor really thought about, just how hard it could be.
I’m not sure how this realization has changed my life or will change my life. I know that I could instantaneously feel its effects on my life perspective. For a while now, one of my favorite things to do is to go to French class. I love the class, but more than anything I love the walk that takes me to class. I try to walk through Killian Court to get there, and the experience takes my breath away every single time without fail. Mostly, I get an overwhelming sensation of great calm and serenity as I have mentioned before. I feel like the world is at my feet, and that I am capable of being a part of the greatness that surrounds me. Today, while walking through Killian, more than anything, I felt a sense of gratefulness. As I kept walking, I kept nodding to myself and thinking how lucky it is that I can be here today. I do have it pretty good.
How did I even get here? I believe in fate; I believe that we are all destined for the paths that we end up taking. I happened to be sorting through pictures later today when I found some baby pictures from before I can remember. In these pictures, I see myself, my parents, my family, and I am absolutely taken aback by how different our lives are now from our lives in those pictures. Ask the parents holding me in those shots where they think they would be in 20 years, and they would not be able to guess in a million years how far away we would all go in life.
How did we take these paths? And how did we make the turns that eventually led us here today? Retracing my steps, I can’t even recount most of those turns that I took, yet here I am still, at the end of all of those turns. These paths over the last 20 years are so complex and so precisely coincidental that they land me exactly where I am today. I can’t help but wonder if these turns were planned all along. They are so intricately connected and dependent on each other to deliver me to the “now”, how can they possibly all be by chance?