You Never Know

I'm about to skip back to something that happened last week. First, though, a little background. 

As some of you already know, three years ago I stopped being a monk in Big Sur because I realized I didn't have the grace to be celibate and because I admitted that I hope to get married one day. Then, once I stopped being a monk, some of the other monks, who live in Berkeley, were so kind and generous as to let me stay in the guest house of the monastery in Berkeley as I looked for a job. 

With that background, I jump back to last week. I was sitting in a cafe in Cheyenne, Wyoming, having one of those moments in which I was feeling that my new circumstances, of being in a very small graduate program at a university on the grounds of a monastery, are not amenable to me hopefully meeting a woman and getting married. And then, as I had thought countless times previously, yet again I remembered that my dating life had been much more prolific when I was living in the guest house of a monastery in Berkeley and had two part-time jobs which barely allowed me to meet my expenses than it later was, after I had moved into my own apartment and had gotten a full-time job! Of course, when I lived in Berkeley, I was living in an urban area, where it was easier to meet women. Once I had gotten my full-time job further south, just a little bit north of Santa Cruz, I was living in a studio in the woods on a mountain; plenty of women in or near Berkeley or San Francisco wouldn't consider dating a guy who lived more than an hour south of them. Geographical considerations aside, time and time again I've marveled at, and taken encouragement from, how robust my dating life was when I lived in the guest house of a monastery. Upon reminding myself, as I was sitting in that cafe in Cheyenne, of that remarkable twist of fate, once again I felt encouraged when considering my potential upcoming dating life. 

Later that day, as I was continuing driving east, I started thinking again about this topic of me hoping to date again soon, and I was keeping an open mind about what could happen. At that moment, I was driving through an area of lovely rolling hills in northwestern Nebraska where I couldn't see far, probably only for about 500 feet. Then I thought, about how it could be possible to meet a great woman unexpectedly, I thought, "You never know what's right around the corner." Literally a few seconds later, I crested a hill, and I was astonished that I could see literally miles down the road.

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