The epiphany that wasn’t an epiphany.

I think it just hit me. Or at least something did. But not at all in the way I expected.

I set out to Marfa, a town in Far West Texas that I honestly didn’t know much about. It was this obscure town on a map, about an eight-hour drive from Dallas. Remote and not the easiest to reach.

That’s exactly the kind of trip I needed. And symbolic of the destination I’ve been feeling like I’m searching for.

I went into it thinking: “Yes, get away on this solo road trip. Be that Gemini that goes against the stereotype and puts himself into solitude and confronts his own thoughts. Force it.”

So I found some out-there AirBNBs: one converted shipping container, one 1950s converted/updated motel, and then the most obscure… a camper in the middle of a ranch in the desert about a 45-minute drive from the closest town, Terlingua.

And what an adventure it was. I woke up that first morning in Marfa -- in the shipping container -- with this overwhelming feeling: “What the hell am I doing? Where am I? I apparently brought myself here for some reason.”

I had to take that first step: shower, put on some clothes, and just get out the door. Go walk, go explore, Google something, head out. I just started doing.

Thinking about it now after returning home, that’s what I was meant to do there: Start moving. Start discovering. Start learning who I am on my own.

I suppose I eased into it. Once I was outside of Terlingua in the camper, Marfa felt like a luxurious big city. In Marfa, I had running water (hot and cold!), an AC unit, electricity… I was without all that in Terlingua Ranch. And no plumbing, no WiFi, no cell service, and no life (well, humans) for miles.

My first night I came back in the pitch black darkness to hear a rattle snake under the entrance to the Aristocrat. It terrified me! I’m not used to this. And I’m all alone. I can’t reach for my phone to FaceTime a friend for comfort. If I shout, no one will hear. I’m in this alone. At least in this moment, it was just me and the rattlesnake under that incredible Dark Sky.

I know I’ll continue to learn from this trip. I went into it hoping for a grand epiphany. I thought surely I’ll have this huge a-ha moment. It’ll all make sense; I’ll know who I am, exactly what I’m doing and the direction for my life. At the mountain peak or surely, under these stars, that’s when I’ll have the revelations.

But it wasn’t until a call tonight with my health coach that she helped me reframe that: The epiphany is that an epiphany doesn’t have to look like one grand moment. It’s a collection of experiences, of steps forward, maybe sometimes backwards. But it’s in that journey of discovery that we have the building blocks for clarity and self-realization.

There was an epiphany after all. And there will be many, many more -- as long as I’m intentional and willing to discover them.