Clandestine Confessions

“In about a quarter of a mile, I am going to turn the corner. When I do, all I ask is you just take it all in. It is going to make you come alive.”
We were on a scenic drive past Park City. He was giving me a tour of his favorite spots, teaching me all about the geology along the way. Dispersing a few stories of life experiences in between.
“Well now you are setting the expectations really high,” I joke. “Thought we agreed that was a dangerous thing to do.”
–
He had become notorious for downplaying every single thing he recommended for me on this trip.
That was intentional on his part.
A “good” from him became synonymous with a “breathtaking” from me.
The Salt Flats.
The lake in Montana.
The peanut butter cookies we ate on his deck over coffee (yes, they were THAT memorable…although I did tease him it may have been because I was on day eight of no peanut butter).
“It is just a few trees,” he replied back. I caught the smirk from the corner of my eye.
“Well now I know you are lying. And somehow, that makes me trust you even more.”
–
The car went around the bend.
I gasped.
He indeed lied.
“My goodness,” it came out in an awe filled whisper.
The tears took all of one second to begin falling; the response to my spirit living in truth.
He turned and looked my way as I looked ahead at the scenery – the endless mountains, the bright blue sky, the seemingly infinite trees.
There would never be enough lifetime to take in the magnificence of it all.
–
“Five years living here, and I still am in admiration of it all,” he said. “Every passion I can pursue right in my own backyard: biking, hiking, climbing, skiing. I never take that for granted.”
His countenance was changing quickly as he was speaking.
It is an overlooked privilege to watch people talk about the things that bring light to their souls.
It is why I asked him to tell me the names of every peak.
He said it would bore me.
But little would he realize it was a highlight to the trip; the secondhand passion settling into my heart. Shaking up my identity complacency. Awakening dormant dreams. Opening my eyes to the more of living.
–
“I had no idea how much I needed this.”
This moment.
This day.
This trip.
This life.
“Some people thought I was absolutely crazy for embarking on this excursion.”
“Unfortunately for those people they only think this is crazy because they have never lived alive. They see from the lens of safety and boundaries. Good for them, I suppose, but not for those like us. Our minds have been too widened to be confined by rules.”
–
Decades spent in pain and turmoil attempting to be understood; the invisibility my authenticity seemed to be cloaked in manifesting into the physical shrinking of myself. Shouting with my body for someone to see me.
And then there it was.
In a jeep driving up the side of a mountain in Utah with a person I met in a chance encounter only a few months prior – on the day the first impartation of life and healing hit my spirit.
And now the second time felt even stronger.
–
Because this one wasn’t to heal the brokenness but to reveal the beauty birthed from the brokenness.
To be given a glimpse at the woman who is being prepped to leave her wing-prints on this world.
The purpose in the pain.
My 828.
“I am not sure I can ever return to normalcy after this,” I told him.
“You won’t,” he said with a slight laugh. “And that is okay. That is the joy of it all. It will keep you chasing for more.”
And today I am living in the proof he wasn’t lying this time….