Staircase Awakening

The early 1990s felt beautiful to me, full of growth, expansion, community, and the thrill of becoming myself. I was learning how to love life in a bigger way. Even so, I still carried insecurities, especially when it came to relationships. I loved deeply and gave all of myself, sometimes so completely that I could lose my center in another person. I wanted to love freely, but I was also afraid—afraid of not receiving the same depth of love I was so willing to give. Looking back, I can see that I was searching for connection everywhere: in friendships, in romance, in work, and in the quiet places inside myself that were only just beginning to wake.

Work was one of the great joys of my life. I loved the people, the movement, the shared purpose, and the feeling that I was exactly where I needed to be. There was energy in that environment that fed me. We worked hard, laughed hard, and grew to know one another deeply. It was more than a job; it was a living community. My days were wrapped in conversation, teamwork, friendship, and possibility. I felt awake in that world. I felt strong, engaged, and fully present in my own life. Even now, decades later, many of those friendships remain, which tells me how genuine that season really was. It was a time of love, not only romantic love, but love of life, love of people, and love of simply being there.

At the center of that season were my girlfriends—Mary, Nancy, Laura, and Leslie—women whose presence helped shape the rhythm of those years. But in truth, the whole company felt like a field of learning for me, a place where every interaction carried energy, humor, and insight. I was physically strong, athletic, and confident in motion. My mind felt open, courageous, and ready to absorb everything around me like a sponge. I did not yet have the language for spiritual awakening, but I had the appetite for experience. I was fully immersed in the world, and in many ways, the world was loving me back.

One day, a few of us were gathered in the breakroom at lunch, talking casually about our weekend plans. It was an ordinary moment, the kind that made up the fabric of that life I loved so much. After I finished eating, I excused myself and walked down the hall toward the back stairwell that led to the second floor. Nothing at that moment suggested that anything unusual was about to happen. It was just another workday, another familiar hallway, another set of stairs I had climbed before. And maybe that is why the experience that followed felt so profound. It arrived in the middle of the ordinary, without warning, and forever changed how I remembered that time in my life.

As I stood at the bottom of the stairs, a strange sensation came over me. Before I even took the next step, a thought flashed through my mind: “What am I in?” The question was immediate and unsettling. When I looked out through my eyes, it felt as though I were seeing from behind a cheap plastic black mask, the kind sold in party stores. My vision seemed narrowed, as if my peripheral view had been blocked. It reminded me of being a child and making pretend glasses with my hands, cutting off everything except what was directly in front of me. I lifted my hands quickly to my face, almost instinctively, trying to understand what I was housed in. For a split second, reality seemed to glitch. It was as if I had stepped outside my ordinary sense of self and become aware of my body in a completely new way. The feeling lasted only for the climb up the stairs, and by the time I reached the top, it was gone.

In that brief passage from one floor to the next, many thoughts moved through me. For an instant, I wondered if someone had somehow jumped into my body, because the experience felt so foreign and so sudden. Yet the deeper truth, the one that revealed itself over time, was far more meaningful. I do not believe I was losing myself in that moment; I believe I was being introduced to a new level of myself. God was leading me through my first awakening. Something shifted on those stairs, quietly but permanently. The woman who reached the top was not entirely the same woman who had started the climb. When I remember that season now—the friendships, the laughter, the energy of work, and the love that surrounded it all—I see that staircase moment as a turning point. In the middle of a life I already cherished, I was given a glimpse that there was even more to discover within me.