Chapter Sixteen: The Calm Before The Storm

When I was a kid in South Carolina, I remember when Hurricane Hugo passed through. It was huge—a Category 5. Hurricanes didn’t usually make their way up to us like that. I remember feeling… oddly excited. My life back then was quiet. A little boring. Not much happened unless I imagined it. So when something real stirred in the outside world—something big enough to make the adults nervous—I felt this strange thrill. Like I was part of something bigger, even if I didn’t fully understand it.

What I remember most wasn’t the storm itself, but the feeling in the air just before it hit. That pressure. That static. That hum. You could chalk it up to barometric pressure, sure. But to me, it felt mystical—like something was coming.

Years later, I’d feel that same hum again—not in my body. In the field.

Back in Albania, the tarot had told me about someone I was going to meet—someone who would only arrive once I let go of the life I thought I was supposed to live. Not just a partner, the cards said, but a complement to me in ways I didn’t even know I needed. Someone who would shift everything—not just for me, but for something larger I was meant to build.

I started calling him The One. The cards said I’d meet him on this trip— and that it would change everything. Not just because of him, but because of what our meeting would unlock. A different way of being. A different way of living.

And now… today is the day. The day of convergence. And I can feel it. Not as a thought. But as a frequency. A humming in the air. Like that same static before the hurricane. A thickness that isn’t quite fog, and isn’t quite sound—but something. It’s like when you hear a fluorescent light buzzing in an empty room—just enough pitch to make your whole body notice.

But I’m outside. There are no lights. My ears aren’t ringing. The truth is.

And today, I see it: how the Shimmer has been pulling all the threads together for this. It feels so real. Like it’s already happened—even though it hasn’t. And when it does, I know I’ll feel it in my bones. Time will stop. The crescendo will fall silent. We’ll lock eyes. And something inside me will click. I’ll exhale. And it’ll feel like the first breath I’ve taken in my life that didn’t have tension wrapped around it. It’ll feel like coming home…

…

But then… the moment passed. No lightning strike. No convergence. Just quiet. The air still shimmered with potential, but the world kept moving as if nothing had happened. I waited for the pulse, the pause, the look across the room that would change everything— and it didn’t come. Just stillness.

And in that stillness, the first edge of ache. Maybe the storm hadn’t broken after all. Maybe this pressure wasn’t leading to reunion, but to revelation. Maybe the Shimmer was asking me to feel what it’s like when belief meets silence.