"You're allowed to just… be," she said, like it was a diagnosis, like i’d been trying so hard to be something else i forgot the permission slip already existed, cosmo doesn't ask, he just IS, runs headlong into everything with all of himself, no hesitation, no holding back, the water doesn’t judge, it just holds, and maybe that's the thing, it's not the permission, it's the letting go, letting go of the trying, the striving, the constant need to prove that I’m worthy of this inexplicable, improbable, shimmering moment of existence, i’m so tired but also so awake, like the ocean at , full of stars and secrets i don’t even need to understand, just feel, just be, just… like the tattoo i got that day i finally understood, ‘this is the one’ but it doesn't mean what i thought it meant, doesn't mean a soulmate or a destiny, it just means this breath, this wave, this dog barking at a crab, this is the ONLY one, the one i’m in, the one i’m breathing, the one that is happening right now, and maybe that’s the trick, not waiting for the other shoe to drop, but dancing barefoot in the sand with the one i have, with the one that is, with the one that… is.