The universe carries so much love (and so do you)

I truly believe the universe looks out for you. Not Universe—the godly, unattainable, all-encompassing version people talk about—but universe, with a little ‘u’, made of all things that make it worthwhile to be here and to exist. The universe looks out for you, but only and only if you give it the power to look out for you. It works a lot like magic— “childhood” magic—you believe in something and then it exists. The bunny talks, the bear starves without dinner, and Santa’s reindeers somehow fit into your three-bedroom apartment in the middle of a country that does not even historically have a very long-standing tradition of celebrating Christmas. You believe and your mind conspires and the universe conspires in response.

I have recently started believing this. Not that I chose not to before, but just that the thought never even occurred to me. Probably because adulthood comes with a self-understood shedding of indulgence. A pause before calories and a hesitation before buying something that you don’t really “need”. But childhood—that is when indulgences are allowed in full swing. Your heart is allowed emotions without explanations and your mind wanders hand-in-hand with the universe in its mellow grip. I think I recently just needed something to believe in, and believing in a god (even though I am technically part of a religion) just seemed too against myself—how do I find one god to believe in when I truly think that everyone’s faith is beautiful and every god is mine on any given day? So, I chose to believe in something that existed in front of my broken, wandering, helpless, noisy-noisy brain. I chose to point out things to it, to tell it to trust them, even if it doesn’t trust me or a “god” or science or anyone else. I needed so desperately to hold on to something, to tether myself, to bind my appendages so tightly that blood stopped flowing—to stop myself (to stop my mind) from killing me on a whim. So, I found the universe. I found little things that made it slightly (oh, so slightly) easier to bear the voices in my head and the murderer I held inside and the murder weapon I held.

And the universe answered. Cats would reply to my absolutely embarrassing meows. Rain would gather on leaves, falling on my face in big splats. Dogs wagged their tails whenever they’d see me approach. Life just somehow started blossoming towards me on its own and forcing my chaos to stop so that when the expectation of love approaches, I am able to reply in love. Dying plants began turning green (again) around me, and I kept finding people to whom kindness was the only thought I could dish, who—in this massive sea of people—had approached me or seen me or caught my eye and asked for kindness in help.

I sometimes think my kindness comes from a place of greed and self-involvement. You shouldn’t think about the kind acts you do if you really mean them, right? I don’t think I know kindness enough. Or greed. Or being selfish. I don’t think I ever will. They are concepts too big for my understanding and I am a writer and I can probably write a couple thousand words about each of them, but (very rarely) the thought does cross me—even if I do it to only think about it later, does it make kindness any less? It still doesn’t change that the world is not kind enough anymore and that people have really, really stooped to appalling levels instead. Do they not feel the same greed or selfishness? If not, then does my greedy kindness somehow still merit a swelling in my heart then? If they do, then why are so many unkind people filling this kind universe with their unkindness?

I do not ask the universe anymore. I rarely ever beg (only on days when my ropes fly open and my mind wields weapons—actually, that metric makes it a daily thing then). But the universe now knows that I truly, genuinely believe in it.

I have bad days (had one today), and a squirrel in my window chittered endlessly, not going away till I turned my head in response and said “hello” with the biggest smile on my face. I came back home absolutely empty and broken and when my emotions had no explanations, and I had talked to my leopard and coloured a dog’s hair in red and ordered food that I had thought I did not really deserve, the universe chose this moment to tell me that I am a good person. That my emotions are valid and I shouldn’t question my kindness. It saw me unravelling and chose this moment to ravel an unravelled thread. It told me that you give kindness, and yes, it is not always returned, but oh, look how beautiful kindness and your (overthinking, messy, sad, tearful) love looks from the other end. So, I believe in the universe. I know it is looking out for me. And whatever they say, I know it’s true that the universe would not look out for me if I were an unkind person instead.

So, trust. Be kind. Be human. Be what we have forgotten. Be what most people never think of growing up to be. Be what your essential humanness intended us to be. Be brave and courageous and scared and scarred. Be broken. Be tethered. But also, be real and kind and honest. Let emotions be without explanations. Let trust flow without questions. Let your indulgences choose to not grow up instead.