Are you living your best life yet? Take it from me…It’s never too late. (Here is a story I recently wrote based on true events “You are the 4th person I’ve ever been intimate with. I married the other three.” I heard him say this in hushed tones over the drinks we shared last night, and my heart nearly burst. Truth be told, I felt the goosebumps rising because I understood the magnitude of what he shared with me. It takes a keen eye and an open heart to see the vulnerability hiding in the shadows behind those words, which is why it hit me like a tidal wave. Over the last few days, I came to know what it took for this man to come all the way here to say those words specifically to me. His life-long journey and subsequent confession made me realize just how much of a privilege and honor it is to witness first hand the kind of impact I have on people in moments like this. He flew in from out of state to spend three days with me. He saved up since last year to do this very thing. He poured over everyone’s bio on the brothel’s website over and over again, and no matter who else he looked at, he kept going back to mine. Something resonated in him. He couldn’t ignore the calling any more. He booked a flight and showed up before he could talk himself out of it. And…Here he was - still trying to absorb what he just did. On our first appointment, he told me his reasoning: During the pandemic, he looked back on his life and noticed the levels of isolation he experienced over his lifetime had finally added up and had taken its toll. He worked 16 hour days for most of his life. That’s where he placed his value. Then, everything he ever wanted and worked for eventually slipped away. The prolonged pandemic became the tipping point for him.. He had more time on his hands than he knew what to do with. Left with no one else but himself and his own self reflection, he was at a crossroads in his life and decided he wanted to fully LIVE it. While his identity and specifics of his story are not mine to tell, it was in that moment that I was looking back at the face of a man who lost his sense of self and the feeling of joy associated with basic human connection. He didn’t realize it at the time it started happening because it is a slow, insidious, and invasive process of elimination. The longer he was away from it, the harder it was to reconnect to others, let alone himself. I told him how proud I was of him to take big, scary leaps. I let him know I was once like him. I summarized, “Leaps can be scary, but not taking them are scarier to me now.” We continued chatting while the karaoke party got underway. “When was the last time you sang karaoke?” I asked. “I never have. I never had the nerve.” I smiled and told him my own story along the same vein, “Fun fact: on March 17th during our St Patty’s Day party, I sang karaoke for the third time in my life. I was convinced after the first time that I sucked at it because I let someone get in my head with their criticism. I carried that story inside me for over a decade. The second time I was blessed to have two partners encouraging me to try it again, and a friend signed me up so I couldn’t back out. I’ve discovered since then that even if I wasn’t the best singer in the room, the fact I had people encouraging me and I had fun doing it was all that truly matters. Now I don’t rely on encouragement to get up there. It’s fun. I do it because it’s part of my ongoing reclamation process.” He sat quietly. I let him marinate in his thoughts and got up and belted out “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls. (It was the same song I picked the first time I tried karaoke all those years ago.) I sat back down beside him and smiled. “So whaddya say? Shall we do a duet?” He cracked a bashful smile and said “Do they have any Joe Cocker songs?” After we sang I gave him a high five. He said “That *was* fun, even if I got lost in the lyrics! I don’t think I’ve smiled like this in over 20 years!” A little while later, I added another song to the queue, and the girls and I all got up to sing “We Are Family” alongside the man who found himself singing karaoke for the second time in his life — and wearing the biggest smile in the room. ❤️❤️❤️ (If you see yourself in this story, I’d love to have the honor and privilege of helping you take whatever scary leaps you need to take.) Email me: [email protected]
Life has been better for me since the reopening but I genuinely believe that you (and Mae) will make my life peak this august. Seeing this just makes me feel pumped!
I think, in many ways, I am living my best life. I may have to write about it in depth, but I took the time to analyze it, and life is better for me now than it ever was before.
