On the mysterious competence of the universe
A study in release, recalibration, and the shocking accuracy of cosmic timing.
In August, someone I love texted me a sentence so simple I didn’t realize it would become the thesis of my entire year:
Not dramatic. Not life-changing. Just grounding — like someone putting a hand on your back and saying, “You’re okay,” in a tone that makes you believe them for once.
I screenshot it, obviously. I screenshot everything.
Archival instincts. Occupational hazard. Capricorn in the eighth house.1
…but, alas.
Shortly after that, my life went quiet.
Not metaphorically — geographically.
I moved back to Northern Kentucky and essentially reverted (at 31) to my 22-year-old self in the best way possible. Morning oatmeal dates on my Grandma Carol’s porch. Walking down the street to have coffee with my mom and stepdad. Sleeping in the same bedroom I lived in at the end of college — same girl, same room, same nightly skincare sermon.
It was the kind of quiet that makes you aware of everything you’d been too busy to feel.
There’s something disarming about hearing your own thoughts again — especially after months where the volume of life was stuck somewhere between “constant tension” and “why the **** are you yelling?”2
So there I was: curly hair feral, glasses persistently sliding down my nose, sprawled across my bed in a silk slip3 — recording 2AM video journals to myself like mini voice memos to my future biographer.
And somewhere in that season of enough silence to tell the truth, things snapped into focus.
Not a dramatic snap. More like the first catch of a stubborn zipper — followed by that smooth pull upward that makes you wonder why it resisted you for so long.
And in that glide, I realized something:
Good people aren’t just rewarded.
Good people are released.
Released from what (clearly) wasn’t love.
Released from what wasn’t reciprocal.
Released from charm that masked control.
Released from the contradictions you trained yourself to normalize.
Released from those who thrived in the loopholes of your grace.
[sighs in 3 languages] Y’all, fuck! — Release is not glamorous.
But the pipeline from ‘disorienting’ to ‘startlingly obvious’ happened quick.
My release looked like slowing down until the real me — the one who dresses beautifully for no reason, laughs loudly, eats and drinks without negotiation, chooses her people without permission slips — wandered back in like, “So… are we done with that chapter?”
And the answer was yes.
God, yes.
The view from my office now overlooks rolling hills, two small ponds, and a garden that is frankly showing off. It’s the kind of view that reminds you your life can be soft without being small.
Clarity is its own kind of homecoming.
The world doesn’t always reward good people with gifts.4 Sometimes it simply restores them with clean air. With full breaths. With mornings that don’t require bracing.
It returns you to yourself so gently you almost miss the moment it happens.
That August text? It wasn’t a nicety. It was a breadcrumb — one I’ve been quietly following back to the version of me who trusts her life again.
So no, the world didn’t make things easy this year. It made them honest.
And when things got honest, they started arranging themselves with a kind of competence I didn’t see coming.
Not magically. Not instantly.
Just… correctly.
And somewhere in all of that — the quiet, the release, the clarity — I stopped trying to steer everything. I let the universe take the wheel for once.
Turns out, it’s a much better driver than I am.5
*this essay reflects my personal experience and inner landscape. it refers to no specific person, company, or relationship.
yes, i made this up ;)
exhibit a: my july oura data —
nervous system was desperately filing complaints.
(not sexual)
though, in my case, i got a few unexpected bonuses in the mix ✨
five stars. would ride again!