THE LOST SCREW.

spoiler alert: it wasn’t lost.

I recently started wearing glasses again. An identity I hadn’t worn since I was in high school. An identity that I’ve happened to return to because the next leg of my journey requires a version of me that I had abandoned…or rather an identity that I replaced with a more acceptable version of myself. I found my old glasses and I began to wear them as I waited for my new glasses to be done getting its new prescription.

Fast forward about a week into receiving my new glasses and wearing them. As I finish my skincare and put my glasses back on, the right leg of my glasses falls off. I pause in amazement and think to myself, “I just got these new glasses.” They weren’t cheap glasses either, so my logical mind started to kick in. I inspected what the cause of this was by looking at what was missing from the glasses in comparison to the left side. The screw fell out. The glasses had become completely dysfunctional due to the most microscopic screw I had ever seen. I said to myself, “I’m never going to find this screw.” I look around on the floor for maybe 30 seconds. “Yep. I’m never going to find this screw. It could be anywhere!” I start to look up repair stations, essentially opting to externalize the fix of this issue. My dad wears glasses and has a kit for any replacements needed, so the process of taking my glasses to a repair shop and paying for it seemed quite unnecessary, if I’m being honest. I get back down on the ground. I turn on my phone’s flashlight and I begin to look in every nook crevice. Nothing. I pause. “This job is not one of the eyes,” my mind whispers. I turn my flashlight off. I take a deep breath. My body begins leading the way. My carpet is quite furry and dense so I really have to feelllllll. I felt for another 30 seconds, and there it was. The lost but no-so-lost screw. I examine it. I had never held something so microscopic but so essential to the overall function of my sight. 

I’ve been noticing the ways that the mystical and magical shows up in those tiny events that often go overlooked. Maybe it’s not even an overlooking but rather the intentional disillusionment. I bought these Chanel glasses because I thought they signified a new, more refined era. I wasn’t wrong per se, but it granted me the course of a new initiation. How to refine through precision. Those with an instinctual awareness of life beyond life often end up neglecting certain aspects of life like our routines and our daily miniscule experiences. It’s much easier to opt for what we deem as the truth. What if that truth still holds an illusion of separatism? Is it still true? Maybe it’s a fragmented one. I was humbled by the delay in my “mystic instinct.” It reminded me to keep feeling my way through life. It is my gift. It is a gift to tend to all earthly experiences with all of its inconveniences. It does a disservice to just write them off and opt for the external fix. The ones where you can just toss to the side and retreat to the mystical layer co-created with the unconscious and the ego. I’ve observed this aspect within others and myself, but much like glasses in its moment of fraction, a screw was missing. The origin of the imbalance wasn’t fully clear to me. That is until now. I understand why we’d rather opt for the spiritual neglecting the very real realities that show up everyday. Things that you don’t always need to talk to the spirits or other mystical beings about. Reality is the bridge between our individual selves and god. The glitches serve as a sort of communion between all aspects of ourselves…if we wish. You see, it’s not easy to embody true duality. We hear about it. We speak about it. We proclaim that we are dual. But it is often an illusion when we’re challenged by life itself. We call on gods and goddesses. We use the laws of the universe. We light a candle. We call on mystical creatures. We do everything but feel. We do everything but inspect ourselves through our immediate world and daily occurrences. We’d rather proclaim there are no obstacles…until there is an obstacle…what do you do then? I believe this is what true spiritual bypassing is. It’s a sort of cowardice that accompanies it. A neglect of reality and all it has to offer in its instruction. I believe if you’ve found this writing that there’s something here for you to discover…but you have to feel. You have to acknowledge what tempts you into hiding from your shadows. The shadows that are always there in presence even if not in observation. What my shadow thought would be easier was an avoidance. It thought it would be easier to pay someone who had all the tools needed to fix it. Even if the feeling was just for a brief moment, it was still a moment. A moment that deserves acknowledgment.

 When we seek to escape what life requires of us by outsourcing our power to something else or someone else, the ego tells you that is natural. It is “human nature”. I don’t agree that it is entirely natural. Natural was getting down on my knees and feeling through the furry mess of my carpet in the dark for a tiny screw and finding it effortlessly. Natural was me knowing that my dad could assist me as long as I had that screw. As long as I did the monumental task of tending to what life was requiring of me at the time. Sometimes the seemingly miniscule, unglamourous mechanical truth that lies in your current reality is what makes the entire vision possible. There’s no reason to run. Reality will always find you. Getting down on your knees and exploring the dark is what just might lead you to getting exactly what you want and what you need. Not a delusion. Not outsourcing. You. You have all the knowledge and tools that you seek housed right inside of your body. So, utilize your depth and awareness and knowledge to manage the microscopic inconveniences of being a fucking human. Turn your cowardice into personal power without retreating into your unconscious shadows. After all, this is the grey area. Where everything is absorbed and reflected. Where the divine lurks in inconspicuous places right under our noses.