Welcome to Day 3 of the summer writing challenge.

The prompt for today is below:

Prompt: 82. Fortune Cookies. I just ate three fortune cookies, which gave me the following fortunes. Interpret them how you will: “Do you want to be a power in the world? Then be yourself.” “Call an old friend today.” “A close friend reveals a hidden talent.” Write a scene or story inspired by one of the fortunes.

I’ll be taking the first fortune: “Do you want to be a power in the world? Then be yourself.”

Below is where my mind took me for an hour at a coffee shop, on a rainy day so I hope you enjoy and I’ll be seeing you very very soon.

My skin has always felt foreign beneath my own touch. What makes a body? What makes a soul? And then which of the two am I? Am I solely this vessel or am I so much more within? I’m not sure if I’m the only one who teeters on the edge of existential crises on a regular basis but I am who I am. I am this soul. And I am this body…I think.

I used to believe in reincarnation because it makes so much sense to me. Of course I used to be something else and after I die, of course I’ll be something else then too. I have so much within me…does that all just get absorbed back into the world when I die? Am I small or am I large? How much space is too much space and how much space is not enough space to take up? Shall I shrink or shall I expand to fill the room left for me by others?

Then….once I’ve answered all those questions, I’m still left with the greatest of them all, the questions that never seems to have an answer…who am I and why? Why am I here? Who was I created to be? The improbability of my own birth and existence, hold my feelings of insignificance at bay but at the end of it all, I’m no closer to the actual answer.

If everything and everyone has a purpose then what is mine? Inherently, I have the capability of altering the reality of every single person I come in contact with but who says I deserve that much power? Who determines the push and pull that shapes this world? And why did they see fit to place me here?

I never asked for this power. The power to love, to hate, to cry, to laugh and everything in between. The weight of it all often feels unbearable. But then what is the alternative if living is off the table? No one knows what happens next so I’d rather take my chances here where my mind is filled with questions and my heart is full of uncertainty. In the present, at least I still am. Existing is hard, but it’s also all that I know. At the very least, I know how to exist.

I suppose this must be where my power lies. It lies in being my most authentic and real self. So, I will continue to ask myself “Why?”, as I get coffee with a friend or in the middle of an argument with my boyfriend or the next time I get caught in a really bad storm. Because breathing, with a beating heart and a mind full of “whys?” may be exactly where I’m meant to be…

Some days I feel like the most powerful being on the earth. Others, I feel small and insignificant. I know the highs and lows & I’ve learned to live through them. I’m familiar with the give and take of a mind connected to a body balancing the complexities of a deep and sophisticated relationship with depression. But, at the very least, I am.

In an effort to encourage myself and remind myself that I am worthy of happiness, I often remember that at the very least, I am. The celebration is in the existing. I am existing within this soul, within this body, attached to this mind, attached to this heart. How powerful I must be to wake up each day and choose to be.

I feel an overwhelming need to thank myself for existing through it all. So thank you self. Thank you, you beautiful, powerful, amazing person for being. Thank you for existing over and over and over again.