I am dressed in a sequined black mini skirt and red pumps amidst a crowd of young people mercilessly hitting on one another and I am thinking about Mother Teresa’s feet.
I am being approached by guys who are attempting to “pick me up” and buy me drinks. I am being ushered into conversations over where I went to school and what is next upon graduation. And I cannot even focus on the eyes of my suitors because I have the image of her feet in my head.
Trust me, it was never my intention to spend a night at the bar thinking about the feet of a late saint.
But they were deformed. Very few people know that her feet were terribly mangled and it was not a birth defect. She instigated her own deformity. Shipments of shoes would make their way into Calcutta and she would be the first to go through them. She would search and scavenge quite diligently until she uncovered the perfect pair of shoes. The pair she chose was always the worst of the bunch. An Ill Fitting Pair. But she chose these shoes first so that no one else would have to. She wore shoes all her life that did not Fit Her or Support Her so that someone else could walk around more comfortably.
I have figured out what I want to be when I grow up. And it is Abstract and Wild and Open Ended but it Fits Me Just Fine. A Miracle. I want to be someone’s miracle, or a miracle to a bunch of people. I want to have walked into this world with such an intense manner and vibrant love for the juices of this lifetime that someone else is left changed because of it. And I don’t need a $70,000 salary to be a miracle. Or a top-notch resume. Or superior references. I simply need to wake up, Smile Big, and Shift My Focus away from myself and onto Others.
Could our life’s purpose exist in somebody else? I sincerely believe that some of us were born to make another happy. Some were born to bring the next great leader into this world. Others were born so that someone else could way up every single morning feeling as though they had made a difference. Whatever the reason, many still unknown, we were each born to play an intricate role that only we can take on. We each have a brilliant purpose that only we can embody and to me that is very much a reason not to fool around with or waste this lifetime. Life is not in the nine to five grind or the six figure salaries. Life is in the way We Walk, Talk, Dance, Speak and Live. And what others can take away from it.
I spend my time these days attempting to explain to other people what exactly it is that I am doing next year. I am moving to New York and I will be the liaison to the Augustinians at the United Nations. “So you must be getting paid well?” No, I don’t make a salary just a small stipend. There, my friends, is the perplexity. Either people automatically assume that I am some saint for valiantly giving up a year’s worth of money or they are baffled and confused that I would even let just an idea harvest in my head. But to me it was never even a second guess. I knew all along that the after I graduated from my four-year college that I was going to need to give back. And though I am no longer journeying to Haiti for the year, I believe it because I am going where I need to be. Where my skills to write and my fierce passion about global issues of poverty, education and human rights will finally meet a match.
I wake up every single morning and think (and I kid you not), “How can someone tell me that I was not born for great things?” I have the awesome potential to walk out the door today and change the course of someone else’s life completely. I really could. We all could. And how can we just take that for granted? When There Are Miracles To Be Had and Dreams To Make Come True.
Maybe we are all strung together. We are all holding pieces of brightly colored yarns in our hands but the purpose is to the follow the strands and see where we are led. Back to one another. Into the arms of a lover. Over the ocean to impoverished lands. We need to follow our yarns instead of holding them so tightly that we lose the game. That we stayed so invested in ourselves that someone else had to let go of the yarn because the pull was too tight. And they lost faith that a miracle existed.
Miracles. They exist everywhere. They are not just quarantined to 34th street in NYC or to hospital rooms and countries without clean water. Miracles are walking around waiting everywhere, waiting to be recognized and seduced into existence.We can grow up to be one. We can grow up and experience one. Or we can grow up choosing not to believe in them…
And I am not going to poke you, prod you or pressure you into believing in them if you don’t want to. But me? Me? All that I ask is that you don’t try to sway me or discourage me because one day I plan to be a miracle. One day. I will be.
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