These words are not meant for the racoon who raids my bird feeder every evening and devours sunflower seeds.
The feeder is attached to my porch railing in a spot where, from my indoor perch, I can watch the birds eat the seeds meant for them and also watch the squirrels eat the seeds not meant for them.
The critters who can’t fly reach the feeder by walking up the porch stairs. The porch stairs were never meant for animals to ascend so they could eat seeds not meant for them!
Like you, I would be more happy and content if what was meant to happen, happened.
For some reason, this is not meant to happen.
For example, most types of food contain not only salt and fats and vitamins but also the powerful property of being able to confound what we mean to happen. I meant to eat only a few chips, but I chowed down half a bag. I meant for that new recipe to taste good, but the children had cereal for dinner instead. I meant to enjoy my last slice of birthday cake when I got home from work, but I’m told someone had it for breakfast.
Like you, I have waved to people who I thought were waving to me but were really waving to the person behind me. And like you, I have mistakenly replied “Thanks!” to compliments not meant for me but for someone else.
Maybe not like you, I have almost swallowed pet medication meant for my Lab and not me.
We open holiday gifts, use toothbrushes, overhear secrets, sleep on pillows, read email, complete surveys, receive invitations and follow rules not meant for us.
And how much happier and content all our lives would be if we always knew for sure which dishware was meant for the automatic dishwasher and which dishware was not, and which clothes can go in the dryer and which clothes cannot.
And though I applaud the efforts of our U.S. mail carriers to deliver the daily mail, I sometimes find in my mailbox mail not meant for me but for a nearby address. To prevent chaos from gaining an even greater fingerhold into our reality, I take on the role of a job I was never meant for and become a U.S. mail carrier. You would do the same, I expect, because there are some things that were meant to be that must be if circumstances permit.
And we all wonder — when we meet someone special and start to fall in love — if that person is really meant for us and us for them. And when we still have doubts — because we remember past heartbreak — how affirming it is to hear someone we trust utter the words “You all were meant to be together.”
I meant to say many other things to you but see I will run out of space soon. Alas, I will not be able to go into depth about how we all mean to arrive on time but get there late, or how we mean to get more sleep but stay awake. Or how we always mean to repair or patch up what is broken, cracked, dented or splintered — but never do.
Though I didn’t mean to have this effect, maybe all these examples will lead you to believe things will never turn out the way they were meant to.
Take heart, me.
Take heart.
These words were meant for you.
