From Brooklyn to the Bay Area

On fate and destiny, living amongst the trees, and following inner whispers westward

There's a moment when walls begin to speak. Not in words, but in feelings - a subtle shift where spaces that once held you suddenly feel like they're meant for someone else. I felt it first in my Brooklyn apartment last summer, a gentle but persistent signal that my time there was drawing to a close. My mother has often said this phrase in Gujarati - badhu lakhelu hoy - everything is written, destined. But destiny, I was learning, doesn't just speak through grand moments. It whispers through the body, through intuition, through the quiet expansion and contraction of our being in response to the paths before us.

Fate comes from the Latin word 'fata' - the fine thread that weaves each soul into the world at the time and place of our birth. Michael Meade writes that fate is the hand we are dealt, while destiny is what we choose to do with it. When we refuse the limits of fate and ignore the hints of destiny, we tighten the unconscious web of our lives. But when we accept those limits, the blessings move closer.

I first noticed destiny's whisper on my way out of the city, crossing the Williamsburg Bridge toward a ten-day silent meditation retreat in the Berkshires. As Manhattan receded behind me, I felt a pressure valve release in my chest - a weight lifting that I hadn't even known I was carrying. It was then I first spoke aloud what I had suspected for months: I think my time in New York is nearing its close.

The thought made no logical sense, and the pain of it caught in my throat each time I tried to speak it aloud. I had built exactly the community I'd dreamed of when I first moved to New York - a little village where emergency contacts weren't just names in a phone, but dear friends within walking distance. My best friend Devin lived two blocks away, others just a three-minute walk, and even the "furthest" of my closest friends were only a fifteen-minute bike ride away. These weren't just friendships; they were relationships that had taught me about love in a way that felt as powerful as any romantic connection. Through them, I had found healing I never knew I needed.

For months, I resisted this knowing. Each time the thought of leaving surfaced, I pushed it away, filled my days with the warmth of my community, tried to convince myself that this was enough, that I could make it enough. The pain of potentially leaving what I had built felt almost physical. I'd walk the familiar streets of New York, past Domino Park where we'd gathered for picnics and I'd done endless sunset walks alone or with friends, past the apartments that held years of shared meals and late-night conversations, and feel overwhelmed by what I would be leaving behind. Every cherished routine, every casual meetup, every familiar face on the street became precious, weighted with the possibility of loss.

The resistance was fierce. I'd make plans for the future in New York, try to envision new projects, new ways of being in the city. I'd list all the logical reasons to stay - my parents' aging, my young nieces and nephews, the irreplaceable web of relationships I'd woven. I'd wake up some mornings convinced I was making a mistake even thinking about leaving, that I was sabotaging a beautiful life for some unclear calling. The reminder would surge during perfect New York moments - running into friends on Driggs or Bedford Avenue, walking to the water and watching some of the most beautiful and breathtaking sunsets behind the Manhattan Skyline, or those moments where community gathered and everyone was familiar and a friend. How could leaving something so beautiful be the right choice?

But that's the thing about destiny - it often asks us to release what we've perfected to reach for something we can't yet see. Sometimes it comes wrapped in loss, in the bittersweet pain of knowing that growth requires letting go. The most difficult part wasn't just leaving; it was accepting that something could be both perfect and complete at the same time. That sometimes we're called to leave not because something is wrong, but because something else is right. Each time I tried to imagine staying in New York, my body, specifically my gut, would constrict, my body not allowing me to go down that path. When I thought about leaving, everything would expand - a physical sensation of possibility, similar to what I felt years ago leaving India, when transitions meant stepping into the unknown with only trust as a compass.

The word "Berkeley" floated into my consciousness on day five of the meditation retreat. It seemed random, almost nonsensical - why would that particular city surface in the depths of silence? I dismissed it, focusing back on my breath. How could I go so far when my parents were getting older, when I saw them every month, when my nieces and nephews were growing up in precious moments I didn't want to miss? These weren't just moments I'd be missing; they were transformations I wanted to witness, changes I wanted to be present for. Every visit would become an event rather than the natural rhythm of family life I'd grown accustomed to.

But the thread of destiny continued to weave. The day I emerged from silence, a message waited from my friend from college, Lex - her firm was hiring, but the position was California-based. "No way I'm moving to California," I thought, but decided to interview anyway. I had nothing to lose, and I'd never actually interviewed for a job before. What I didn't share with anyone was that months earlier, I had written on a post-it note all the requirements I wanted from my next chapter - the type of person I wanted to work for: a founder, entrepreneur, someone who had achieved work-life balance, had managed to build a family while building something meaningful and successful that was also values-aligned that I could learn from. A person who was older, who I respected and could learn from as well.

When I interviewed with my future boss, it was like my post-it note come to life. All the things I'd looked for in front of me and that has only become more validated as time went on.

For months before this, I had been carrying a vision of a mountain house, a home amongst the trees. It was a persistent image that had no place in my Brooklyn life, yet it wouldn't fade. This past summer, months after starting the job, another thread appeared - my friend from college, Lex, recommended reaching out to another friend of hers who I had tangentially known but never spoken to. He lived in this beautiful house in the hills, amongst the trees. When I saw it, I recognized it immediately - it was the vision that had been visiting me all those months.

Looking back now, through the lens of both grief and gratitude, I understand what Meade meant when he said that fate is the doorway to destiny. I had fulfilled what I came to New York to do in that moment in time - found the deep community I'd dreamed of, experienced love and healing through friendship in ways I never expected, learned lessons through the intimate nature of my relationships in New York that had prepared me for whatever was next. The completion itself was a kind of fate - a natural limitation that created an opening for growth.

Now, more than a year after that meditation retreat and accepting the job, things are beginning to make a little more sense. There has been an expansion in my life that I couldn't have predicted - in love, in my path towards my work and calling, in healing and coming into myself. The journey hasn't been perfect - there have been challenges, and some remain as I navigate the permanence of this move. But even in the midst of unfolding, even with questions still unanswered, it's everything I could have imagined and more than I could have dreamed.

My mother's words echo: badhu lakhelu hoy - everything is written. Yet what is written often requires us to take the impossible leap, to trust the whispers that make no sense to our practical minds. Perhaps this is what destiny looks like: not a perfectly smooth path, but a continuous unfolding that keeps revealing new layers of possibility, even as we navigate its challenges. The thread keeps weaving, and I keep following, trusting that what is written is still being written through me.

Sources:

Michael Meade:

• Fate and Destiny: The Two Agreements of the Soul

• Living Myth Podcast: Unlocking Destiny