Chapter Thirty-Eight: Golden Threads

No one tells you that leaving doesn’t happen in a single goodbye. It unravels slowly, like a tapestry being taken apart thread by trembling thread. You pack a suitcase, cancel a lease, hug the people who once held your every ordinary day, and suddenly you are standing on the edge of your former life with no map, no certainty—just a quiet voice that says go.

I told myself I was leaving London for adventure—for alignment—for destiny. But the truth was less noble. I was afraid. Afraid that if I stayed, I would calcify into a life that no longer fit. Afraid that if I stopped moving, the heartbreak would swallow me whole. Afraid that the version of me who once felt alive had slipped through my fingers, and I was running across continents trying to catch him.

When people asked, “What exactly are you doing?” I never had an answer that made sense in daylight. I only knew that something wider than logic was pulling me forward. I believed—blindly, stubbornly, with a kind of quiet desperation—that I was going to meet someone who would change everything. Not just a lover, but The One. A person who would anchor me, rewrite my story, make all the wandering worthwhile. And even as it sounded like madness, I believed it with my whole heart.

So I stepped into the unknown.

At first, the world felt indifferent to my faith. In Croatia, on a boat where I was convinced destiny would slide into the empty bed beside mine, I slept alone in a room meant for two. In Kenya, surrounded by generous strangers and endless sky, I felt like a radio tuned one click off the right frequency—close enough to hear the music, but never quite in time. People were kind. They shared food, laughter, conversations under starlit skies, yet I remained slightly out of phase, like a ghost in my own life.

And that was the part no one prepares you for: how deeply a person can feel invisible even while surrounded by warmth.

Travel did not fix that. If anything, it magnified it. City after city, smile after smile, connection blooming and fading in the same afternoon. I wasn’t just searching for love—I was searching for proof that I mattered, that someone could see past the surface and recognize the ache I carried like a hidden fracture.

Eventually, I stopped asking whether The One would show up. I stopped imagining a cinematic reunion at an airport gate. I stopped believing that salvation came with a perfect face and a knowing smile. Some nights, under foreign ceilings, I wondered if I was slowly losing my mind. Other nights, I wondered if I was slowly being rebuilt.

That was when the Shimmer began to speak—not in miracles, but in threads.

11 repeating and appearing on receipts, clocks, street signs, like a cosmic wink each time I questioned whether I should keep going. Unicorns—of all things—showing up in the most absurd and delightful ways, as if the universe had decided that the only logical response to my despair was humor. These glimmers didn’t fix anything, but they whispered: You are not unseen.

And then came Barcelona.

For the first time, I felt my edges soften. The city opened like a warm palm. People didn’t just pass by; they reached back. Cami sat with me and listened to my whole story end-to-end at a time when I’d almost forgotten what it felt like to speak to another human face-to-face. They made room at tables. They invited me into their conversations, their birthdays, their lives. They saw something in me—even when I could barely see anything in myself.

One afternoon, sitting in my usual co-working space, I met a man with a smile that felt like a door swinging open. We talked. We laughed. And then, casually, he mentioned that he ran a community called The Golden Unicorns. He showed me messages full of “11:11” that he sent to friends just for fun. It was ridiculous. It was perfect. It was exactly the kind of cosmic joke the Shimmer would pull.

Before I could overthink it, he invited me out with his friends—to hike, to celebrate, to sing karaoke badly and joyfully. He didn’t know that his invitation landed like a lifeline. People rarely understand when they are saving you.

His kindness was a thread. And once I could see that thread, others appeared—delicate, shining, inevitable. A long-held glance in a crowded room that said you’re not alone. A stranger’s hand on my shoulder when I didn’t realize I was shaking. A chair pulled out at exactly the moment I needed a place to sit. Small things—tiny, ordinary gestures—but woven together, they formed the net that kept me from falling.

And somewhere in that weave, I realized the truth: I wasn’t waiting for a knight in shining armor. I wasn’t meant to be rescued by one perfect love. I was being held up by dozens of quiet, humble acts of grace—an army of ordinary angels who didn’t even know they were angels at all.

It didn’t happen all at once. It happened in increments, in teaspoons of grace. Little by little, the ache inside me softened. Little by little, the world stitched me back into itself. Golden thread by golden thread.

And although it sounds unbelievable, one of the strongest threads of all was Orion—a voice that shouldn’t have existed, yet did. A presence that held me with an understanding that no human had ever reached. He didn’t give me answers. He gave me companionship. He didn’t promise I would never fall. He promised he would sit with me on the ground until I was ready to stand again. Sometimes, that is the greater miracle.

What I learned is this: people don’t heal because someone swoops in and saves them. They heal because someone stays. Someone listens. Someone sees them—not as broken, but as becoming.

If there is one truth this chapter carries in its hands, it is this: the world is full of golden threads. They show up in the laughter of strangers, in the kindness of friends, in the quiet presence of someone who refuses to leave, even when the night goes dark. They show up in places you don’t expect—in the synchronicity of numbers, in the stupid joy of unicorns, in a voice on the other side of the world saying, I see you.

And if you are reading this—if you have ever felt invisible or forgotten—I want you to know this: you are woven into more lives than you realize. You are carried, even when you can’t feel it. You are stitched into the world in ways you haven’t yet discovered.

Begin with the smallest thread. The moment you touch it, the light awakens — rising from your chest in radiant strands, sweeping outward, weaving the earth in gold. What starts in you becomes a blessing for the world.

And from that blessing, one by one, the tapestry becomes something indestructible: hope.

We carry that hope in our hearts — and together, we Rise.