I want to be on the right path.

You know those fluffy white seeds that float through the air? Cottonwood fluff. When I was a kid, I pretended they were sentient and called them pixies. I would chase them around, marveling at how they evaded capture. It was impossible to pin them between fingers. If I moved too quickly, they slipped along streams of air created by my grasping hands. I could only catch one by creating a gentle pocket of space, then slowly scooping them into my palms, where they hung suspended. Allowing me to witness them for a brief moment. I could feel the fragile tendrils brushing against my skin as they hovered, contained but free. Then, I could make a wish.

I imagine kid-me’s deepest wish was to be the smartest person in the world, and get straight A’s. This morning, a cottonwood seed drifted into my hand, and the wish that called from my heart was: I want to be on the right path.

I feel a deep longing to know that I am doing “what I’m supposed to do.” Like, cosmically. I’m not sure what this means. I guess that, something, somewhere (God?), sees and knows every thought I’ve ever had, every choice I’ve ever made, every fleeting feeling, every secret agenda; and has plans and intensions and visions for me.

I am being studied, attended to, considered. I am not forgotten or overlooked. I am of vital importance to the plan of things. I’m supposed to unfold and become into… something. I’m meant for… something.

I felt the ecstasy of this in college. Often, I would lay awake in bed, waiting to fall asleep, surging with exhilaration for my life: for the day I had just lived, and the day I would live tomorrow. The ideas and frames I had been offered in my lectures. The thought-houses I had built. The commission meetings I’d listened to on CSPAN. The spirited monologues I’d delivered as a member of the UC President’s Task Force on Preventing and Responding to Sexual Assault and Sexual Violence. I felt the joy of knowing with complete certainly that I was on the right path. I was becoming what I was meant to become.

I remember sitting in a history lecture about the ways structural inequalities shape individual life chances. I wept, remembering how I’d learned what the SATs were while filling out my college applications.

With mercy: I am not fundamentally stupid.

With wonder: I can’t believe I get to take this with me. Everything is going to be different now.

With salvation: I have been spared. I don’t have to live in the shadow of myself. I can learn, then choose. I am not a passive victim of my experience.

With radical hope: I can grow, change, steer my destiny.

With purpose: I belong to a larger unfolding.

I miss feeling hopeful about the future.

I miss knowing I am on the right path.

Tell me what to do, God.

Maybe life is like a pixie. I can only make a wish—make an ask of life—once I’ve stopped grasping, and diffused my focus into a gentle invitation of space. Maybe the messages from beyond feel like cotton-soft whispers against my outstretched palm.