There comes a time when you realize it's them, not you. That no matter how hard you try, they just weren't meant for you. Dogs, people, places, things...they all fit into one of two categories: "meant to be" or "not meant to be".

For as long as I can remember I have been the "black sheep" of the family. Not in a horrifying sense of outcasted and rejected, but more aptly in a much more painful way of feeling self segregated and misunderstood. I think this was from the pressure I put on myself to stay seen. Stay relevant. All while not attracting too much attention to be judged or ridiculed. For many years I thought I had to do what the rest of them did. Finish school, finish college, get married, have 2.5 kids, a dog and a white picket fence in the suburbs. Today when I look at my life, it's not even close. High school and college completed, but that's where my similarities stop. The thought of having kids terrifies me. I like my freedom, I love my independence. I have 2.5 dogs instead. Plus a few horses and cats, and we'll officially call it the country life. Barbed wire has replaced the idea of white pickets, and the suburb doesn't want me! I talk to nature, and I burn sage. I'm a hippy, mixed with a few parts redneck. And the hell with black, I'm all kinds of shades of awesome, blended in with a few scars and bruises that prove the road can get awfully rough on your own out there.

The path I have taken isn't always easy. I hurt people's feelings, I stand maybe too strongly to my convictions...and I call a spade a spade. Don't light the match if you can't take the heat, so to speak. I've been accused of being too honest, and my mouth often has a mind of its own. But if there's one thing you can always rely on, it's gonna be a fun ride! I don't fit in your box, I truly do have an armoured heart, and that psychedelic sheep and I are starting to find the others...

The Brave. The Weird. The Different. The Awesome.

So if you're a little like me, don't turn around because the path gets narrow or moss covered. Trust that the rest of us are right around that corner. Waiting. Wishing you were here with us. Longing for your wisdom, and your light. Don't be afraid to crush that box...peel back a layer of armour and dance with us under the stars!

Welcome to the herd. Where we all have different stripes, spots and patterns. But we all flow to the same rhythm of our souls.

I wasn't directly affected by the wildfire being named "The Beast", nor do I even know anyone who lost their home. But being on the road for the last week, relaying essential goods here and there, fuelling up the fire fighters themselves, and witnessing the massive devastation has likely changed me forever. At least I hope it has.

Some of my clothes are ruined, my truck will smell like smoke for an indefinite amount of time, it may take a week to catch up on all this sleep, and I may be down a few friends. However, clothes and trucks are just material things. Things that can easily be washed or replaced. There will be time to sleep. And I have met some of the best people I have ever known.

Witnessing a natural disaster of this proportion has to change you. I can tell you it will snap your priorities into place quickly. It will leave you both breathless and speechless. It forces you to decide what is truly important.

Time and time again I am hearing stories of material goods not even registering on the radar while people were fleeing with little more than what was on their back. They had their loved ones, and that was all that mattered. I realized in those moments what I had truly lost in my own life. Maybe not to fire, but certainly to the internal restlessness of my own soul. Feeling trapped, lost and hurt. I always knew my purpose and had the drive to get there, but I slowly lost faith as others didn't see my vision the way I did. Recently I had decided to really get in tune with Mother Nature. I decided to cease hunting with a gun, purchased a book on communicating with nature, and developed a friendship with a certain Raven that likes to follow me around. I took time to really enjoy nature, to understand it. I asked for signs, and I was given them. And then she showed myself, and the rest of the world, exactly what she was capable of. But as I experienced all that I did this last week, I really found a sense of hope. Hope mostly for my own life. It was like I had created this own fire within myself that wiped out everything I once new. I had produced a burning that even I myself couldn't contain. It destroyed everything in its path, including the person who was once the most important person in my life.

Now as I looked behind me, I can see spots of new life beginning. It's scary and it's hard to move past what I've done, but like a wildfire, it can't be changed and you just have to look forward. And just like a wildfire; with a lot of hard work, tons of support and the complete destruction of everything I once knew, it is controlled and I can begin to rebuild.