Just Think of All the Goodness You Never Saw Coming (Keep Going)

From the Vault: Words From the Archives Brought Back Into the Light.

Dear Reader,
From The Vault is a series of republished posts dug up from the archives of my 25 years of writing, dusted off, and reshared here with you. Most often because something in my current life has pulled me back to long-ago words and called them back to the light. Sometimes, I’ll make additions or updates, sometimes I add commentary, but often, I post as-is.

I thought perhaps, in the midst of all this chaos and encroaching darkness, some of you might need this reminder of the goodness that is still waiting for you.

Listen while you read:

xo.
jlb.

PS: This journal is fully supported by readers like you. If you are not yet a paying subscriber, please consider supporting my work by subscribing below. Your support of my words and my work means absolutely everything to me.

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Just think of all the goodness you never saw coming.

You know what I’m talking about, right? The goodness. They holy-hell-I-can’t-believe-my luck-goodness. The pinch-me-this-can't-be-real goodness. The lucid-dream-reality-don’t-wake-me-up-please-omg-goodness.

I bet you never saw it coming.

Do you remember that day in the cafe? You know, when Mr. Brightside played over the speakers and suddenly, everyone was signing out of the blue, all of you perfect strangers suddenly a part of something shared. Remember how you were so there you didn’t even think about recording it, you just belted “destiny is calling me” at full volume like this was your moment, because it was.

Or that night, when her thumb made excruciatingly slow circles on the palm of your hand, and you had not yet kissed a woman in your entire 32 years, and you swore it was the most erotic thing you had ever felt, and you were so dizzy you tasted blood and realized you bit your own tongue from the want of it all.

Or that October day you faced all your fears and drove through a land made of the wildest combination of ancient magic mixed with the sharpest and most tangible light, and you held your hand on your heart the whole time even though you were driving on the wrong side of the road and it was terrifying, and you sobbed big gasping tears, and the only word your mouth could form over again was “home, home, home”.

What about that night you were driving down the darkened highway somewhere in the in-between that wasn't here and wasn't there and was somehow everywhere all at once? You looked over at him and thought, "This is all my forevers right here, and my god, it will never last." But somehow, it did last, just long enough to save you.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Or when your back arched against the white sheets and her hands tangled in your hair and for a moment the whole world stopped spinning except the earth wasn’t like just a globe it was like a disco ball and the sun caught the dust particles in the air on fire in a tiny million pinpricks of light, and everything was spinning and spinning and spinning.

Remember that concert where the whole crowd sang together, and you felt the harmony in your bones, and the concrete floor was sticky with spilled beer, and you leaned over to your very best friend, and all the strangers around you felt like lovers, and she said, “this is what living feels like,” and you didn’t say anything at all back you just landed all the way in your body with a giant woooosh that knit something entirely right inside your heart.

Photo by Anthony DELANOIX on Unsplash

Or when you were sitting around the edge of that darkened room with that same best friend, listening to a maestro of words weave language into something that lived somewhere between music and story and poem, and the cadence of his voice filled all the space in the room until the air danced and your heart danced with it and you didn’t even realize it, but somehow you were holding her hand so tightly, and both of you had tears running down your cheeks, and suddenly you knew the truth, if romantic love didn’t feel that good, you just didn’t want it, and you’d swear you’d never known that much peace.

Remember the year you drove to the ocean to save your own damn life, and you threw yourself into the water, and you got so knocked around by the waves, and the saltwater absorbed your tears, and you finally washed up on shore, teeth chattering and skin covered in goosebumps and understanding for the first time what it meant to be baptized and you were frozen and so fucking alive and you smiled the first smile your face had felt in months and knew you were going to be so much more than okay.

Photo by Serrah Galos on Unsplash

Remember when you were doing that really big-amazing-brave-wonderful thing, and somehow the exact right song played, and it was like you had an entire team of people combing Spotify to build the soundtrack for the movie of your life, and it was so dead on perfect you might as well of being living in a damn episode of grays anatomy where the exact right music made the moments somehow more, and suddenly your life was that exact kind of more and you were like "WOAH, now THAT was cool."

Remember the handsome stranger? The one with the perpetual five o’clock shadow and the voice like the ocean floor. The one who looked at you like you were the goddamn woman he’d dreamt of since birth and who danced with you like he was made for movement until the champagne bubbles in your mouth made your blood effervescent enough that you leaned in for a kiss that moved mountains. And even though there was never more than that one perfect kiss, and you never saw him again, he somehow rewrote the rules and the expectations, and forever after that night, you were comfortable expecting magic.

Don’t forget the love affair that brought you the meaning of the word epic. The friendship you never saw coming that got you through the summer you thought you wouldn’t survive. The beauty that took your breath away and gave it back to you at the same moment. The serendipitous magic you couldn't have predicted in a million years. The angel who rescued you when you’d left yourself for dead. The magic pennies and wishing fountains and shooting stars and the way you laughed yourself alive and the wild nights of dancing and the bonfire on the beach and how the marshmallows caught fire, and you licked the sticky white insides off your fingers and looked up at the milky way and felt just the right kind of insignificant.

How many sunsets and summer rainstorms and kisses and magical moments of happenstance you never have imagined or dreamed or planned for in a million trillion years?

Think of all that goodness you never saw coming. Just think of it.

Now. Imagine what still might be out there just waiting for you.

Keep going, love.

Please, keep going.

I promise, with my whole entire being, it will be epic.