I’m about to take on a new management position at work, at a store closer to home, and it’s just now fully hitting me.

Right now I drive about an hour to work every day, but the drive is actually pretty meditative and I absolutely love the city I work in. You grow attached not only to the kind of people who shop there, but also to the place itself.

It’s a much more liberal city than the little hick town I live in, and I make pretty good money on commission here too because of the volume.

With the price of gas, being closer to home will definitely make up for seeing less customers, but there’s still a little bit of anxiety swirling around in my head about potentially having less foot traffic.

This might sound naive, but I buy into metaphysical stuff a little. Symbolism, synchronicities and other woo woo ideas. I know it’s (probably) mostly bullshit, but there’s still whimsy and mystery in life, god dammit.

For example—and I shit you not—any time I make a big life change, without fail, I will always see a praying mantis.

Not, like, in the woods on a nature hike, or even when I’m out doing yard work. More like I’ll be looking out the window and one will land on the other side of the glass, directly in front of my face. One time I had a baby mantis land right on the collar of my shirt the very first day of training at a new job — one I was having a lot of doubts about. It was the job that got me into commission sales and I’ve been thriving in it ever since.

Whether it’s the universe sending me bugs or just a silly coincidence, I take it as a sign of good luck.

For the last couple of weeks leading up to this big move, it’s been similar but just a little different. I’ve been seeing huge, bright green grasshoppers in the same kind of way. I’ll walk out the front door of a business, surrounded by what feels like miles of asphalt, and one will jump up and buzz right past my face. Or I’ll be driving and one will crawl out from under the edge of my hood and leap off the windshield.

Yesterday morning, I had to climb up on a ladder to fix the “open” sign, and when I was climbing back down, I found myself face to face with another huge grasshopper.

And as a bonus, a few days before that, a customer came in and showed me this beautiful picture of a praying mantis he took out in our parking lot. He said it was right in the middle of the sidewalk so he picked it up and put it in the grass so it didn’t get trampled on.

We got to talking about how neither of us ever really come across one in the wild, and he mentioned that he sees them as a good luck charm too, because they’re so rare.

This is so fucking cheesy, I know. But I decided to take it as a sign: make the leap and trust that everything will work out. It’s a risky move, and I still have some anxiety about parts of it. But I have to stay confident in my decision to do it, just like the little green guys do.