Glow In The Dark

What two girls, one haunted house, and a Stanford Blach taught me about the beauty on the other side of fear.

Let’s play a fun game.
One where I get to sound either completely crazy… or absolutely right (hoping for a target audience reach).
One where delusion is just another word for seeing clearly—stripping down illusion.

Let’s say we create our own reality.
That we chose our lives—our core relationships and our key lessons—before coming here.

If that were true, it would mean something kind of beautiful:
That nothing shows up in our lives by accident.
That everything we see is connected to how we feel.
That life isn’t happening to us—it’s happening for us.
That we’re not victims—we’re just people remembering we have more power than we thought.

And right now, in this Barcelona chapter, one of my favorite co-stars is here:
My Stanford Blach. (Yes—the fashion icon. The sacred chaos.)

Honestly, it took way too long to land on that comparison.

Stanford isn’t quite right—she’s more than a sidekick—but it’s the closest placeholder for someone who brings flair, sarcasm, and a soft heart under all the fabulous.
Carrie’s plus-one. Sounding board. Occasional mirror. Forever cheerleader.

After a two-day, time-warp of a flight, she landed in Barcelona—and the moment her ballerina flats hit the cobblestone, we were in sync.
We saw monuments.
Laughed at the dumbest things.
Danced in the street.
Caught up on every tiny detail of life like no time had passed.
Beach to city, moment to moment—it was just... so us.

Seeing Barcelona through her eyes—eyes that see design, color, texture, and story—is seeing the city for the first time again.
It’s walking through a dream I forgot I’d chosen.

It is redefining home through someone who knows me—deeply and weirdly—across time and place.

This kind of love?
It only gets better with distance.

And that’s the thing—I do believe we choose.
Maybe not everything. But maybe the people, the places, the plot twists that expand us.
That thought makes life feel less random.
More like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.

As we wandered, Stanford reminded me of something I hadn’t realized I’d forgotten:
The art of noticing.

Noticing how much I’ve changed since we last stood on the same ground.
And even more importantly—how much of my essence hasn’t.
How it’s just more visible now.

It hit me—this friendship was always meant to stretch.
We had one class together in our entire academic career.
Don’t remember how we even learned each other’s names.
Never shared a friend group.
Don’t live in the same state.
Now, we're living on opposite sides of the world.

And still, this love goes the distance.
No trying. No forcing. Just being.

That same energy spilled into the most unexpected moment.

In line for a horror museum, we met two strangers—girls with an instantly familiar kind of magic.
We said yes to walking through a pitch-black haunted house with them, in exchange for drinks after.

And somehow, the scariest part wasn’t the jump scares.
It was just… the dark.

But on the other side of that darkness?
Light.
Connection.
Parallel stories.
New friendship in bloom.

We met ourselves in another form.
We found triumph in our life lessons—not because they disappeared, but because they weren’t scary anymore.
They had a reason to shine.
To be witnessed.
To connect us.

We used our own blueprint—our weird, winding paths—to become friends.
To remember that we create so much more than we give ourselves credit for.

And what a wild gift it is—to invite fear in.
Not to conquer it,
But to let it guide us toward the light.