Clandestine Confessions

“What can I get you two to eat?” the waiter asked as he approached us at the counter.
“My treat. Get anything you like,” my friend said.
I looked up from the menu at the waiter, “what do you recommend?”
He listed off a few items; raved about one of the salad options and the pizza and the cheesesteak.
The latter I had been craving for a while.
But did not express that.
–
Before I say any more, I need to first give a backstory to where I was at this point in my healing.
I was “healthy”.
Nourishing my body well.
Treating it with respect.
However, certain habits and rituals still lingered with how, when, and what I ate.
Nothing that was going to kill me but definitely not increasing to the depth of living.
Parts of my life were still confined by the rigidity I kept in place to establish control.
Which makes sense in light of where I was emotionally.
I was only three months out from my last interaction responding from the standpoint as “the other woman”.
And also only three months into my new lease of an apartment apart from my ex (the first time living alone in about two and a half years).
A heart really only in the beginning stages of healing from the wounds of betrayal and back-to-back breakups.
My guard higher than ever.
Still coming to terms with all that transpired, grappling with all I became, sorting through the rubble of the mess it left in its wake.
Especially given the news I received just days before I left for my trip…
–
So what happened during this entire lunch doesn’t make much sense in context to my state at that time.
I turned to my friend after the waiter was done talking and said happily, without inhibition, “you can choose for me. I trust you.”
–
What did I just say…?!
–
There I was, for the first time ever, handing over my control…of the very thing I held a death grip (literally) on for over two decades.
And speaking three words I told myself in countless breakdowns on my closet floor I would never offer another again.
Part of me was in utter disbelief but another much larger part was utterly unfazed by it all, not able to imagine any other response but that one.
It seemed inevitable.
Second nature.
A natural reflex to feeling safe…
–
“Well, then I guess we will have one cheese pizza for me and a cheesesteak for her,” he told the waiter.
Now looking at me, “sound good?” he asked.
“Perfect. So glad you do not perceive me as a salad kind of person,” I joked.
Only me knowing how many layers of hidden truth were actually within that statement.
–
We ate our meal outside, making sure to not miss any opportunity to enjoy the beautiful weather that day.
A chairlift was to our right – sparking many stories from him of skiing, teaching, traveling, dreams he has for his life.
A bar was in front of us – creating a conversation regarding his favorite beer (which became a three part response based on type, location it is made, and the memories surrounding it).
And it would be immediately after this, seemingly out of nowhere, not prompted by anything, he would ask the question…
–
“So, could you see yourself living here?”
He asked it so nonchalantly, with a smile, going in for a bite of the other half of my cheesesteak right after saying it.
Responding in such a manner that would display he had no idea what I was about to speak.
As if we were not about to enter into a sacred moment of time: the dividing line of a before and after.
–
“Yes. Without a doubt.”
It was the fastest, easiest, most assured yes I have ever spoken.
One I am even uncertain from where it came.
I simply came to Utah because it was recommended and looked beautiful from my research.
There were no other motives.
Not even a single thought or sensation of something greater existing here.
And mind you, by this point, I had only been in the state less than 24 hours.
Only having seen the Salt Flats and the walls of my hotel room.
Neither of which prompted any consideration within me of one day calling this place home.
–
Nothing about this question being asked and my yes to it was premeditated.
It was instinctual.
It was spiritual.
It was bigger than me.
And it would prove that nothing in my life has been coincidence…