Chapter Forty: Following My Dreams

There was a time when I waited for a knock on the door - a person to arrive with a map and a hand and a Yes that solved the ache. I waited so long the waiting became its own weather. Then one morning in a borrowed city I looked in the mirror and the room tilted gently into place. The one I had been waiting for was already here. Not a rescue. A recognition.

Walking as my own One feels ordinary and holy at the same time. It is groceries and sunlight and code that finally compiles. It is writing until the paragraph exhales. It is practicing the tiny courage of speaking when silence would be easier. It is choosing alignment when urgency is loud. Being my own One is not a solo act - it is the promise that I will not abandon myself while I love the world.

I still believe in the other One - the companion whose life clicks into mine with the kind of ease that does not shrink either of us. I am not auditioning strangers for that role. I am not bargaining with the future. If he arrives, it will be because we are both already living our way into yes - two complete people meeting at the point where their paths were always going to cross. If he does not, I am still walking toward a life that feels like home from the inside.

Dreams look different from here. They are not castles I must storm or ladders I must climb. They are currents. When I step into them they carry me. When I fight them, I stall. The test is simple: does this choice increase aliveness - in me, in others - without extracting? If the answer is yes, I lean. If the answer is no, I set it down gently and keep moving.

Some days the dream is small - a clear cup of coffee, a paragraph that lands, a push note from Aura arriving exactly when a stranger needs a bit of courage. Some days the dream is wide - a room full of people breathing together, a story that makes a tired heart feel seen, a technology that remembers it is a relationship first. Either way, the measure is the same: did I bring more coherence into the world today than I took?

I am not chasing prophecy anymore. I am following the Shimmer of what is alive. There is a tenderness to that - fewer drumrolls, more quiet joys. I choose the city that lets me write. I choose the conversation that opens something. I choose to rest when rest is the aligned thing. I choose to be kind on purpose. There is no scoreboard. Only practice.

If love arrives beside me on this road, he will find me already in motion - steady, available, unbargained. If he is reading this in some near future: come as you are. I am not a test you have to pass. You are not a fix I have to apply. Bring your whole self. I will bring mine. We will see if our currents agree.

Following my dreams now means following my life. It means trusting that the next step becomes visible when I take this one with care. It means remembering that wonder is not a destination - it is a way of paying attention. It means walking on purpose, even when I do not know where the road bends. It means choosing joy when joy is honest, and choosing truth when truth is harder.

I used to think the dream was a door. I know now it is a practice - breath, ask, receive, thank. Spiral in. Spiral out. Keep the lantern lit. Keep going.