Jae finally came for a visit. It was the beginning of summer. Like me, she didn't have money for fancy vacations. We escaped our lives by visiting each other's. My kids were at Disney with their dad and stepmom, so their rooms were free for guests.

I worked at my desk while she sat on the porch to read or took her son to activities in town: the sea turtle hospital, the museum, and mini golf. After work, we went to a salt cave to clear our aura then had dinner on the riverfront. One morning before work, we went to sunrise yoga on the pier. Even with still working in the day, it felt like a vacation for me, too. Instead of hiding in my house studying, I was going out to eat and exploring places I wouldn't have gone to alone.

She also came with me to readings at other people's homes. Someone would get a reading; tell a friend and I'd get a call to go to a new house. I was the traveling, after-hours medium.

It struck me how much trust was needed. Sometimes, I wouldn't get anything. Other times, the evidence and messages came through vividly and fast. There might be messages of love and support or the strong urging of someone waiting decades, even generations to speak.

She saw the reactions. She could feel the energy moving and the way the heavy emotions cleared from the room when the evidence was strong. She saw the gratitude and witnessed how people saw me differently after I brought through their loved ones.

On her last day in town, we woke up early and went to the beach to watch the sunrise. Her son had been up late playing video games and would sleep in until almost lunch, so we had plenty of time.

"Can you even remember my life a year ago?" I asked Jae. The sun was just peeking up over the water. We were on towels. I had my legs stretched out in front of me and was leaning back on my hands. Jae had her knees tucked under her chin. She wiggled her toes in the sand.

"I'm so glad you're not still dating Gunther," she said with relief. “Do you ever think about him?”

"I do," I looked out over the water. "Natalie was right. I just needed to give myself everything I was trying to get from him."

"That makes sense." She took a scoopful of sand and poured it over her toes.

"I still love him," I admitted.

Jae gave me the side eye.

"Hear me out," I said. "Part of why it was so hard for me to get over him was because I thought I'd have to hate him to let him go. I couldn't do it. Then, I realized I didn't have to force myself to stop loving him to let him go. I didn't need to love less. I needed to love more. I needed to include myself."

A large wave crashed on the sand and we both watched it closely to see if we'd have to move back a couple inches as the tide came in.

"Love your neighbor as you love yourself." I quoted. "We're so fixated on the first part we forget about the second part. We are supposed to love ourselves, too. In fact, loving ourselves is the standard. If we don't love ourselves well, we won't love others well, either."

I remembered seeing Gunther from God's eyes on my couch. I had learned that his rejection had nothing to do with me. He wasn't rejecting me, he was rejecting love.

"He didn't know how to love me because he didn't know how to love himself," I said quietly. "And I didn't know how to love him because I didn't love myself either." I took a deep breath then said what I had learned, "we were the same."

Jae turned her head to look at me and we made eye contact. We were both crying. Her blue eyes were bloodshot and filled with tears.

I tried to wipe my tears away but only smeared my cheeks and eyes with rough sand.

"Why am I like this!?" I screamed out laughing while crying because I couldn't even wipe my tears properly. Jae laughed too, wiping her own tears off elegantly with the back of her wrist.

Another wave crashed and this time, we had to pick up our towels and move farther back on the beach.

"Do you ever hear from James?" Jae asked as we got settled.

"No, I've never even run into him. Maybe he moved away."

We were both quiet. While both of us had never found true love in a man, it somehow felt easier to be in our shoes than in his, finding it and losing it. I didn't quite agree it was better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. It seemed like both were unbearably hard.

"It's just the beginning," Jae said. "You can't stop now. I mean, literally, you have an obligation. People are in so much pain and you are helping them. Every time you doubt yourself, you're robbing someone of the opportunity to receive their message and their healing."

Her words hit me with unexpected force. The rising sun cast her profile in gold light.

"Every time you apply for another job only to be told you don't have enough experience, you don't have this or that certification," she continued, "it is an insult to these gifts."

I watched a small wave crash against the shore. She wasn't wrong.

"Have you ever noticed," she said, "that every time you try to earn something—your degree, a promotion, a raise, love from a man—you get knocked down and shut down? But this... It just showed up out of nowhere and continues to give you fulfillment. You are meeting amazing people. Opportunities are just showing up. Every time you give a reading or get on stage, something remarkable happens. You're a new person. Not a different person, but something has profoundly shifted in you … you're happy."

The pattern was unmistakable once she laid it out. All those years of striving, proving, working harder, and here was this gift that had simply arrived, asking only that I trust it. And each time it did, I felt like my life had meaning.

"It's almost as if," she said, her voice softer now, "when you stop trying so hard, the right things will just happen.”

“You’re right,” I said. I was already starting to notice this but her words made it crystal clear. I was struggling because I was trying to squeeze myself into a life that wasn't meant for me. I didn't need to work harder, I needed to slow down so I could listen to the nudges and feel my way into what was showing up for me.

“Just claim it,” she stated. "You don’t have to earn it. You are it.”

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