The Bean

My father always told me "everything happens for a reason", and though I tried to live by this mantra I do not think I actually understood just how accurate this was until Tuesday.

For the last two years of my life I have been working towards a music degree in vocal performance - and the last three years have been towards a bachelor in English. In the span of approximately ten seconds my entire plan came crashing down around my feet. Next year I will of course graduate with my BAE, however my vocal ambitions are no more. Because I have been taught to be unique and because I am a passive sort of a person who tends to explode with happiness more internally rather than externally, I have failed to gain admission into the performance program.

Telling me that I do not compare to my peers who were accepted into the program, and that I can do a third year recital, but without any instructor assistance, I grudgingly left my teachers studio knowing that I would never see a third year recital. It was this same day that I received a paper from my Romantics course - my first C I have ever received - and was rejected from a job I had applied to. I am still currently looking for employment of course, but have since regained a more optimistic outlook.

After getting all of the bad news out of the way, I was able to attend the six third year recitals of my friends that afternoon. I never thought that the day would ever come to an end, however when it finally did this is when I realized that somethings do happen for a reason.

Originating from Alberta, I left the safety of my parents home to attend school in Nova Scotia. I had applied to live in the 'haunted' residence, however was placed in my third choice - Barrax. It was here that I met Nathan, who soon became a close friend. Coincidentally, we lived on the same floor and only two doors apart. To say that we got along all the time would be a huge exaggeration, however, he was the only person I would allow to comfort me through a friends death. Two years after we meet we began dating - a complete and utter shock to me and something that prompted all my friends and family members to say "I told you so".

Anyway, it was on this fateful Tuesday that I knew that I had met Nathan for a reason. Laying on my bed discussing the news and then standing in his kitchen the next day still miserable and getting that reviving hug, I knew that this is why I had been placed in Barrax. The reason was to meet the person that could replace the parental comfort that was across the country. I had met him to be reminded that no matter how horrible life can be that there will always be someone there to lift you up. And it was with this knowledge that I gave Nathan one small dry kidney bean on Tuesday. The reason - so that one day when searching through his wallet for change and he came across that forgotten bean he would remember that there was someone out there that loved and cared about him, just as he had for me.