enlightenment

Tonight in the car I was blessed with enlightenment. PS, Idaho was good, but dusty, and I dug up and weighed like 10 million potatoes. And back to my enlightenment.

As I was dropping Carl off, I had a sudden flash of inspiration, that all the things that make my old group of friends so cool are all the things that kind of lead to why they're not married.

And I was pondering this on the way back to my house, and something hit me. It's a little difficult to explain in one go, so here.

One time, I got into this terrible car accident, and an ex-friend said that he thought I deserved it. At the time I was both horrified and delighted, and thought he was wrong. But now I know that he was right.

And here's the thing: I firmly believe that we all get exactly what we deserve. We live out our judgments in this life just as we will the next. God doesn't allow any unnecessary suffering for anyone; if you're suffering, it's because you have something to learn from it. I suffered that car accident because of the things I had to learn. And I did deserve it.

But on the other hand, I was thinking in the car, that also means that I deserve what is in my life now. Because we all deserve everything in our lives now, good and bad. I deserve it all.

It's like the great James Allen has said, nothing can come into your life except that which belongs to your soul.

It's a cool thought to think that Carl belongs to my soul, in a way. I deserve him.

On the other hand, I also deserve the homework for 19 credits of classes, and my mom being whack, and being poor, so there we go. I think it all balances out.

But anyway, so then, I realized, that once upon a time I traced how my entire relationship with Carl kind of goes back to that car. That car crash. How if I hadn't destroyed my car, I would have kept my job, which means I wouldn't have finished my first novel, which means I wouldn't have had a reason to talk to him really later--I mean, writing really brought us together, and that car accident that made me quit my job jumpstarted that for me.

And that's when it hit me: we all get exactly what we deserve every day. But all of the bad things that we once deserved but have moved on from? Those work together to bring us the best things we could ever hope for.