You wouldn’t think of eating a burger at the local chain burger shop as a spiritual experience… not under normal circumstances. But, what if this is the day you finally found yourself? What if this is the day that you became the real you for the first time, ever?
He didn’t know how many people even noticed his leather pants as he ordered his food and found a seat, but he was aware of his body in a way that felt both new but strangely familiar at the same time. The feel of the leather was unreal! And the subtle smell made the experience even more intense.
He could tell that some people noticed the irresistible shine on his brand new pants. They wanted to look but didn’t want to show it.
This is his first day wearing leather out in the world and it’s a dream that he has held for a long time. The longing began earlier than he ever admitted; not a youthful rebellion, not a dramatic demonstration of independence, but a secret that he kept under his mattress since he was a kid.
He was a teenager then, sitting in a stiff chair in a dentist’s waiting room, heavy with boredom. Magazines lay scattered on the table, their corners curled from the countless people who have pawed through them in haste. His eyes fell on one that changed his life on the spot.
This was his first heart-pounding look at the world of men in leather and motorcycles. It seemed too good to be true; this magazine full of erotic leather snapshots, just laying around for anyone to see… right there in the Dentist’s office! He wondered if he could slip it out of the office. Would anybody notice or care?
Leather claimed him as an initiate! Smooth, dark leather. The kind worn with dismissive confidence. He imagined it hanging on his body, the way it would wrap him tightly, the way it would make him feel intense and invulnerable. In that waiting room, surrounded by dull colors and quiet boredom, leather felt like a new world of excitement. Like clarity.
Reclined in the dentist’s chair, bright light overhead, mouth open and hands useless at his sides, his mind raced even more intensely. While the hygienist worked, he couldn’t even hear the small talk; his mind escaped into that same vision of amazing clothes and those men who looked so tough, complete, fully in control of their lives and personal energy.
Leather became a place his mind went when he needed happiness. A symbol of confidence when he felt young and uncertain. Even then, he sensed that it meant something amazing, though he couldn’t yet explain why… he just knew that he liked it more than anything else and he needed it in his life.
As he grew older, that quiet fixation matured. He saw leather on men in magazines, in films, on the street, and felt the same pull he’d felt in that dentist’s office. Leather represented a kind of masculinity that felt exhilarating to him. Strong without hardness, expressive without apology. Still, he kept it all private. To be sensible. To postpone the things that felt too honest to reveal.
The dream didn’t fade. It simply became patient. The day would come when he could be his own man and be who he wanted to be.
The morning, when he wore leather pants for the first time, the feeling was amazing, incredibly sensual. The leather was cool at first, then quickly warmed to his body, molding to him as if it recognized him like an old intimate friend. He stood still, breathing, remembering the waiting room, the dentist’s chair. The teenager who learned to soothe himself with a vision of strength and self-direction.
Looking in the mirror, he didn’t see someone pretending. He saw an overwhelming reality. A long-held longing finally expressed.
Stepping outside, he expected to be nervous. He expected to get cold feet and run back into the house to change. Instead, he felt an excited determination. The world was his. People passed by. Nothing shattered nothing bad happened. With every moment, his body relaxed further into it’s true self.
He feels present and whole. This is his new reality and he wont give it back . Checking himself in the mirror, wearing what he loves, honoring what carried him through years of waiting.
This moment matters most because it’s ordinary. Leather pants are no longer an escape he visits in his mind. “You have the rest of your life to be old,” he thought to himself, “now is the time to be young!”
He wishes all of the people around him could feel as good as he does right now! No hesitation, no shyness. Just a guy finally wearing the dream that he discovered years before.
What once lived only in his imagination is now in his life.
And it feels exactly right.
