As I prepare to enter my last semester of college, I'm feeling all sorts of emotions.

Joy, excitement, curiosity...but also uncertainty, anxiety, and anticipation.

Above all, I've been feeling unsettled about what's to come next after I drive away from the place that has built me throughout the past four years. To leave behind the laughter, memories, hardships, and trials and enter into the unknown we call "the future."

As I sat down to work on some last-minute things, I got to talking with a lady who said she went to the same college (after she read my sweatshirt). We got to chatting when she then informed me that she was also in the same sorority as me and we continued to swap stories and memories from the sweet home we've both made at the small college that holds countless memories.

But this was only the beginning.

As our conversation progressed, we began to learn more and more about why it was so easy for us to strike up a conversation about the inner depths of our souls. It's because we were meant to meet.

She's a woman on fire for self improvement--for constant discernment. She's a life coach who shares her stories and words of encouragement through her podcasts. She's me in 15 years.

She asked me if I'm excited about my last semester and if I like my major. I replied with "Yes, but I'm not sure if it's what I'm meant to do forever. I just feel like there's so much more I'm supposed to do." I also told her about my anticipated travels to Europe this summer after graduation, and how there's just so much I want to see and do in this life we so often fall asleep while living.

She smiled and told me she went through the exact same thing--that the thought of one thing forever is completely unrealistic for her. She told me there's such a heavy expectation (especially in the small suburban town we've both grown up in) to settle down, get married, have kids, etc. But what fulfills you? What feeds your soul? So, when she was 28, she sold her house and bought a one-way ticket to Italy where she rented an apartment in Florence for 12 weeks to pursue her inward journey. She called it a "Hero's Journey" appropriately enough. "Very 'Eat Pray Love'-ish, I know," she said when all I could do is tilt my head back and laugh at the fact that I had JUST watched that movie last night and said to my mom, "I think I'm gonna do that one day" and all she could say was, "I kinda thought the same thing" and we both cracked up. Coincidence? No shot.

She says how everyone always is in awe when they hear this story, saying how amazing that must have been and how much she must have enjoyed it. But, in reality, she said it was not the typical enjoyable experience you would think. She was on such a journey that she couldn't wait to get out. But she said it was exactly what she needed, and she couldn't run away from the reason she sold her life in America for a permanent residency in the Italian sun for nearly 3 months.

She began describing the "Virgo Northern Node" (not exactly sure what this is tbh) and how this labels her intentions throughout her career as a life coach. She began to tell me she's exactly the same label--these people are spiritual servants, and wish to be teachers. She began to tell me her speaking career, when again, I just laughed. Years ago, probably when I was in high school, I was at a Catholic conference where I listened to various speakers. These speakers went beyond my outer shell and spoke to my soul. They inspired me in ways I'm not sure I could describe to you in the amount of characters this computer screen is capable of holding. High school me thought: "I wanna do that one day" --then immediately dismissed the idea of that being a possible career for myself. "What would I even talk about?" "There's no way I could do that, there's just no way."

Well...way.

This lady did it, and she's fulfilled. She was open to the crazy paths ahead of her and laughs in the face of change. She loves and encourages for others to do the same; to not settle for a cookie-cutter lifestyle of getting married to your high school sweetheart and buying a house with a white picket fence for your 2.5 kids to play in the yard together. That's great, and it works for a lot of people, but it's not for her. There's a world beyond your white picket fence: open the fence and take a few steps.

And who knows if it's for me, either.

Here's an encounter that we both acknowledge a greater power behind. There's a reasoning behind this experience; and who knows, maybe I'm being awakened.

Thank God for the awakening moments like these with the people who challenge us to discover ourselves. To take the leap of faith in the journey towards what fulfills us. To discover what awakens our souls within our tired skins.

Here's to us, the last semester, and encounters that couldn't be more perfectly "random."