Clandestine Confessions

I was sitting in a Starbucks when I received the text.
Drinking my second cold brew refill of the day, writing and dreaming and basking in the excitement of my departure just a few days away.
I saw my phone light up next to my laptop.
I looked down to see the name on my phone and immediately had a hunch I knew what I was about to be told.
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There was a previous version of myself that had predetermined I would not survive this moment.
That this right here was going to be the death of me.
What the disorder couldn’t do, heartbreak would.
But thankfully, she had long since been alive.
She put her ending in her own hands back in May.
And I knew no matter what was about to happen, I was going to be just fine.
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In preparation, I put on the song from the wedding, thanked God for His healing, and opened the text.
Intuition was right…
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I was suspecting it was going to happen soon.
It wasn’t a blindside – I knew well how this person operated.
And recent actions pointed straight to this outcome.
I sent a text to my friend right after – the one who had walked by my side through the aftermath of the ending.
Who would text me every single day after I revealed to her the secret life I was living, checking in to ensure I was making choices to align with my worth.
Never any judgement shown in her words; only love expressed to keep calling me back to truth.
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“Prefacing this by saying I am okay. More than okay. No need at this moment to process what I am about to tell you, but he proposed.”
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And I truly was okay.
I had no remorse, no regret, no jealousy over the news.
No tears were shed.
It was actually extremely anticlimactic considering how much history there was between us.
I only felt sadness that he did not have enough respect for me to tell me when he reached out a couple weeks earlier…
Surprised by that? No.
Disappointed? Yes.
Regardless of all I had seen, I still kept hoping he would one day answer to his true potential.
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But I didn’t stay in that place long – far too many brilliant colors surrounded me to stay trapped in that black and white reality.
I said a prayer for life and love and truth to overflow his future marriage, and then moved on.
Back to my research of the best hidden gems of Utah.
The irony not lost on me that it would soon become the true great love of my life.
The most beautiful reminder that surrender is not a punishment but a privilege…
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It was a unique experience to be colliding with what could have been while living in what was meant to be.
To realize the stark contrast of the two worlds all because of one choice…
One choice to run one final time.
And never look back.
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Had the outcome been different, I would be beginning to plan a wedding that day.
Instead I was planning a solo cross country road trip.
Which is my favorite part of this memory – the divine timing.
To be immersed in the creation of my dream authentic life while receiving the news of the death to a dream I once carried.
It felt like a wink from God.
“You are exactly where I called you to be…this is the purpose in the pain.”
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And that I fully trusted.
A trust that would start the largest butterfly effect my life has ever seen…