Love, Poetry, and the Beauty of Being Alive: A Reflection on Life’s Little Miracles

On my 36th birthday, I received a card that touched me in a way I wasn’t expecting. It wasn’t flashy or extravagant—just a small, simple card that one of my closest friends handed me with a soft smile. But what made it special wasn’t just who gave it to me—it was how it came to me.

Her three-year-old daughter had picked it out.

Imagine that: a toddler, standing in front of rows and rows of cards, reaching out her tiny hand to choose that one—a card with a quote by Rumi that read: “Love has taken away my practices and filled me with poetry.”

I read it once. Then again. It landed in my heart with a weightless kind of gravity, the way truth always does. In that single sentence, I saw the story of my own life mirrored back to me. I saw the essence of awakening. Of surrender. Of remembering who we are.

Waking Up Isn’t What I Thought

For most of my life, I didn’t think much about spirituality, poetry, or awakening. I wasn’t seeking enlightenment. I wasn’t chasing truth. I was just living—doing my best to keep up with the pace of modern life, trying to find some kind of balance between doing and being.

And then something shifted.

It wasn’t a dramatic lightning bolt or a single event. It was more like a quiet unraveling. Slowly, the structures I had built—the practices, the planning, the constant self-improvement—started to dissolve. Not because they were bad or wrong, but because something more natural began to emerge in their place.

Love had taken over. And in that surrender, something unexpected flowed in: poetry.

I didn’t even know I liked poetry. Before 2020, I had never read Rumi, let alone written anything that resembled a poem. I didn’t identify with the spiritual world. If anything, I had held it at arm’s length, a bit skeptical, a bit uninterested.

But when I wrote my first poem, titled "The Gold," something cracked open. I shared it with a few friends, and their reactions surprised me. Several of them said, “This reminds me of Rumi.” I had to Google him to know what they meant.

I didn’t think much of it at the time. But looking back now, I see how the universe was gently weaving its threads. Dropping breadcrumbs. Planting seeds.

And then, on my birthday, a three-year-old handed me the confirmation I hadn’t known I needed.

The Gift of Synchronicity

I don’t believe in coincidences anymore—not in the way we often dismiss them. Life has shown me too many moments like this one, too many perfectly timed encounters and gentle nudges, for me to think they’re meaningless.

When a child who doesn’t even know how to read picks out a card with a quote that echoes the very essence of your personal journey… that’s not random. That’s poetry itself, disguised as everyday life.

It made me smile—not just at the synchronicity, but at the beauty of how life speaks to us. Through children. Through chance. Through the quiet unfolding of our days.

And it reminded me of something simple, yet so often forgotten:

Life is meant to be lived—not controlled.

Letting Go of the Need to “Do”

What I’ve come to learn is this: love doesn't require effort to exist. The soul doesn’t need perfect conditions to sing. And awakening doesn’t always look like discipline—it often looks like softness.

Sometimes it’s in the letting go—the release of all the practices and shoulds—that our truest essence comes rushing in.

And when it does, it brings with it a river of expression. Of emotion. Of creativity. Of poetry.

The Beauty of the Ride

I want to leave you with this reminder: appreciate the ride that is your life.

Not just the moments that feel like gentle breezes on sunny days, but also the ones that shake you, rattle you, move you to tears. Value the highs and the lows. The clarity and the confusion. The laughter and the heartbreak.

You don’t have to love every moment. But you can learn to be with all of them.

Celebrate the days you feel like dancing. Cry on the days you don’t. Let yourself be moved by music, held by hugs, undone by beauty. There’s no rulebook for being human, no right way to do this life.

The truth is: it will be over before we know it. And maybe that’s what makes it so breathtaking. Its fleeting nature makes every single moment precious.

So while you're here, while you have this body and this breath—live.

Live fully.Live honestly.Live in your own unique way.

Life as Living Poetry

What I’ve come to see is that life is poetry. Not in the way we read it on a page, but in the way it unfolds when we allow it. Every moment—no matter how ordinary—holds the potential to be sacred. Every emotion is a whisper. Every person a verse. Every sunrise a smile waiting to be received.

You don’t have to write a poem to be a poet. You only have to be awake enough to notice the poetry all around you.

And when you do, you begin to realize that even the mundane is holy. Even the messy is beautiful. Even the silence is filled with meaning.

In Closing

That little card from a toddler on my birthday was more than a coincidence. It was a symbol. A mirror. A reminder of how love moves when we let go. It takes away the rigid structures and fills us with the softness of expression, the freedom of creativity, the truth of who we are.

So here’s to being fully alive. To crying and laughing. To writing and resting. To being cracked open by beauty. To remembering the poetry within us all.

Go forth, be you, and live your life in only the way you can. It will be over before you know it—and maybe, just maybe, that’s what makes it all so incredibly beautiful.