Take a New Path

Unexpected Beauty Up Ahead

Most people keep secrets. Myself included.

Almost daily I talk with someone who has something buried deep within that’s been difficult to talk about. It’s always right there, bubbling near the top of mind but held in no matter the burn from the boil.

After close friends or family opened my memoir and learned what I had hidden for a long time, many expressed both surprise and hurt that I never shared this story with them before now.

Weren’t we close enough to talk about these things?

Did I fear judgment from those who loved me?

They assured me that they never would have looked at me differently. I could have told them.

But I keep reiterating that I held in my story, not because I feared judgment but because speaking it made it reality.

Some of us like to ignore reality, don’t we?

We don’t know what moving forward will be like once we take a different turn from that familiar path we’ve sort of camped out on. We might be quite comfortable with our survival skills on that current track since we have managed to navigate the expected obstacles so far.

I knew right when to lift my camouflage mask for any passersby on that trail who might question my presence there.

Are you afraid to step over the sharp places on the unknown ground in front of you, like I was?

I desperately did not want my story to be reality, so I held it in. I simply would not step forward on such unknown terrain.

I wasn’t as sure-footed in my adult life as I was as a child frolicking all over the ground with abandon.

Especially after I started uncovering those boxes in the basement that turned my world upside down and shifted my sense of balance.

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{I wrote about those boxes of secrets back before I published my book 🔗 HERE if you’d like to read it.}

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My mom planted 4 o’clocks all along the side of our home back in the day. Do you know these flowering bushes, also called The Marvel of Peru?

One beautiful bloom. One silent. Photo by Div Manickam on Unsplash

The fuchsia flowers stay closed up during the day, ramrod tight, as if they refuse to reveal their beauty in the full light of the day. Around 4 in the afternoon, they bravely open and stay confident through dusk, when most people aren’t really looking at flowers as much.

I did, though. I’d run over to the side of the house barefooted every evening trying to catch them right in the act of opening. Sometimes I’d park myself there just to take in their glory.

That’s kind of what telling our stories is like. Glorious.

A slow bloom. Tentative at first.

Unfolding delicately until someone catches the vibrant colors.

I’m finally embracing this title of storyteller.

Who knew getting all of this out on paper was so imperative?

Digging the soil. Cultivating the ground. Planting something like the Marvel of Peru and allowing the flowers to bloom creates something beyond a beautiful garden.

It provides space for others to run barefoot up to the edges, park there and absorb that beauty.

And that’s what I am experiencing now that I’ve finally opened up—welcoming others to witness it all. And it feels pretty darn good to share that with so many who are gathering ‘round and telling their stories as well.

And I might even encourage you not to wait for dusk . . .

Tell your story in the light of day.

{If you like my metaphor and want to absorb the beauty of a revelation. Witness the bloom.🌺 Find yourself in a story of hope & restoration, check out my memoir, My Father’s Daughter. Reviews & a free sample on 🔗 Amazon.}

Sharing this story is a nice way to help others find connection too. 🌞