Fate

Twenty-eighteen, the year everything started to go down hill for me. I was getting less and less hours at work, I felt alone despite being around friends and family, I lost passions such as writing for a long period of time and I was struggling to pay my bills. Applying for a job I really didn't want; and with my parents on my case about money; I got a casual position working in fast food.

Weeks went by, with customers paying for their food, managers screaming at me and handing out 'feedback' forms, with my equal crewmates asking why was I working with them, my dad told me I was on the brink of depression and I quit my job before I had another one. Unbeknownst to me, a guy had once come through the drive thru, ogling at the one feature I dislike heavily about myself, my very round, very noticeable behind.

Twenty-twenty, year of the Covid-19 Pandemic, I lost all hours at the job I had at a school, had to go on financial help and my family basically demanding I get another job. I applied at a warehouse my brother use to work at and got the job in June, two weeks after I was gaining hours at the school. I transferred from one part of the warehouse to another, with hours being given to me left, right and center. I left my first job to focus on this one and in the department, before I left my first job, I wore ribbons in my hair for a week; one of the guys noticed and we spoke about them once a few weeks later. He knew I worked with children and openly talked about his son. I thought he was just a guy that seemed very surfer like, relaxed and having the time of his life. I was wrong. Below his calm persona, he had secrets that no one knew about.

Two months before we started dating, he would catch himself staring at my direction whenever I bent down, or squatted down to scan something into the programs we used. Often he would find himself in a situation where he had to leave the area to get back into the appropriate headspace; one coworker often asking questions about what he thought of me. He spoke with his family about me a lot and when he told me, at first I was terrified of what he said to his family but now that I know them, I know he would have gushed a lot.

August 21st, he built up the courage to ask me out on a date and we hung out at the local shopping center from 10am, right up until 2am the next morning. That Sunday night, I stayed at his house and never left. We made our relationship official August 29th, talking everyday about what we had been through and what we wanted in life. I spoke of my job where the managers scream and his eyes widened.

"You were the one in drive-thru," He whispered and I frowned at him. "I knew I had seen you before. I worked in the warehouse just down the road from that place and I told the guy who was driving that you had a nice ass."

"Just wait until everyone at work hears this," I smiled and we both laughed. It took me six months to tell him I love him, whereas he knew three weeks in, I didn't trust my own heart; my own judgement. Not long after our six months together, we were having a conversation and I felt a sense of deja vu wash over me.

Fate had given me a dream years ago with my partners face in it. I was seventeen or eighteen at the time but I remember it as our conversation progressed, that feeling of butterflies fluttering around my stomach continuing even when the conversation ended.

He knew of my passion for writing and often encourages me to continue the stories I haven't touched in a long time. The problem was - and still is - is that I am insecure about my own skills I often give up just as things start to get good. My partner doesn't care that I am twenty-five and still have the same interests as when I was younger. Something that always hurts him is when I put myself down over the smallest of things such as when he compliments me and I go sometimes. Growing up, I was often called fat, over weight and occasionally got told I am no oil painting; all by my own family, so those words float through my head all the time.

Fate is something I have always believed in; my family never believing in me. Fate is real, with hidden clues everywhere, in dreams, in thoughts, in real life experiences. You may not believe in Fate, but know that when the time is right, the ribbons tethering you to the path you could one day follow will lead you to what you need most.