What’s that about Karma?

On Sunday, I walked out to my car ready to go to the gym and power through another lifting session and was met with shattered glass. My back left window of my brand new car had been broken, and my gym bag - a super cute TokiToki backpack that contained all of my mobility equipment - had been taken. I started to panic. I hadn’t had this happen before, I put all my money into this car, and I was in a good amount of pain which is in part why I was headed out to the gym to do the things that help address it. Things I needed the tools in that bag to accomplish.

As I write this, I’m standing with a heat pack around my neck which has fully seized up.

I yelled for my partner to come back, and he told me to call the police and he went to get things to clean-up the glass. I filed the report, checked if anything else was missing, and started sweeping. Because it was a weekend I needed to wait to call anywhere to get the window fixed, so in the meantime I moved it to a more secure parking location.

For those wondering, I live downtown in an area with a disproportionate amount of homeless or unhoused (I’ve learned through talking with someone who has lived this experience that different people have different preferences for the term used) people to the amount of resources we have available. I also have unsecure parking at my condo, that backs onto an ally, and a corner spot facing away from the building that is a good spot to seek shelter in colder months.

Because of all this, people come through often. I’ve gone out to my parking spot to find someone sleeping behind my car, or driven home to a bike in my spot and someone nodding off by my storage locker which sits just behind it. I don’t mind, truly. Everyone deserves shelter and to feel seen, and safe; And as long as I am also safe in the interaction and the spot is left clean, it’s okay.

I assume the best of people, and I have a deep empathy for this community for personal reasons, the details of which aren’t super important.

Fast forward to the afternoon: My partner and I decided to go for a walk, and I opted to start down the ally just in case we found anything. Well, we did. A couple of objects that I knew had been in the front unzipped pouch of my backpack were on the ground along the ally that had not been there in the morning when we drove away.

The person had been nearby with my bag while I was processing all of this; While I looked through my car in spots with other more monetarily valuable things to make sure nothing else was taken. I had felt violated before but truthfully, this was more unsettling.

I’m still unsure what to do about this part. I want others to feel safe, and that also should not come at the expense of my own safety. Security being one of my core values, this is hitting me hard. I also don’t want to be someone who doesn’t trust people - It’s been four days of that and I am exhausted from it already. I want to trust, I want to have love and compassion, and I want to feel safe.

That all said, that isn’t quite why I chose to write this. After this happened, I put a post up and sent an email to some clients saying I was doing pay what you can readings to try to cover the deductible. I am fortunate, and I also do live very much to the dollar of every pay cheque. Well, within 24 hours, someone booked a reading and two others gifted me funds which ended up totaling 85% of the deductible! I was told I am a good person, and I didn’t deserve this.

So, when I say “What’s that about Karma?” this is what I am talking about.

What we put out there does come back to us, in this lifetime and I do believe fully in the next. Our contracts, they stick. If we don’t learn through them this time, we are given opportunities for that in future.

Community stepped up to care and that connection I have developed through this growth and the big deep messy lessons, it speaks volumes.

This isn’t to say I wish ill upon the person who did this. Honestly, it is quite the opposite. I hope that whatever happened that led them to this life, in this or the next, something shifts. I hope they are able to afford these types of items for themselves, and maybe bring a little compassion to the next person so that they can experience the same sort of shift. I hope they feel love, and safety, and seen by their community. I hope they feel that now. I also have a hard time believing they fully do. But, I could be wrong.

I am a good person. I am fallible, yes. But, I try. I care deeply. I pay forward where I can and help in ways I am able. And my community showed me that they see that. They allowed me to be cared for, to heal alongside them and not in isolation. My friend Kyley Caldwell has said “money is the energy of being taken care of”. For the longest time I thought that meant I had to heal all my deepest darkest wounds and money would follow. And not necessarily exorbitant amounts but enough to just feel secure, to afford my and my cat’s medical bills . . . that sort of thing. I don’t think I was wrong, but I do think this is a next layer of growth through that lesson.

Yes, I have to heal those things; and yes, I can have that level of security. But my dearest child (says universe), you are not meant to experience that security alone. You are meant to thrive within community.