stefanie says

I do not believe in random strokes of good luck, or in flukes of good fortune.

And most of all, I do not believe in simple coincidence. I think that there is always a reason for when certain things happen and when they don’t, and more so, in the timing in which these things happen. That there is a source to thank every time there seems to be a rainbow for me to smile at on the bus home after a crappy day at work (there are more stories here, but will be saved for another time).

Why I say that I do not believe in coincidence or chance is this:

That on a night when I am feeling much inadequacy and unnecessary worry, that I would get the most well-timed email from a stranger, with words that spoke life into what was lacking. To remind me to keep yearning and hoping, even when life points me in the direction of cynicism.

I am quoting parts of the email here, not as a way of drawing attention to myself, but because this person - with this Tumblr being the only thing connecting us - managed to sum up and describe me as a person in a way that I could never see for myself, but that I knew to be profoundly true the moment I read it.

Recently, in your posts you’ve been writing a lot about fear, about faith and courage in yourself, about accepting love and been unafraid to give it. You’ve always written/posted with unabashed optimism and sentimentality, but something that I’ve also noticed consistently is an accompanying undercurrent of yearning, of groping hope and desperate love for the world and its disparate realities - you know that the world, the souls that populate it, and the structures that we abide in and by can and will disappoint, they will let us down - but you also believe, and refuse to accept otherwise, that the world can be beautiful, uplifting, transcendent. 

So this is what I have - a light that will never go out.

And on such a night as this, I am reminded of these things even in the midst of doubt, and will therefore remind you as well: To keep believing in the good. To remember your own significance even in the mundanity of 9-5 days. To find little joys in the every day but to stay hungry for more. To remember that you are so beloved, even by me as I think of you reading this. And above all, to keep that light in you burning, and to light a fire in someone else as well.

Much love, 

Stef