Sledge's birthday is 2024's Memorial Day. Leading up to his birthday, each year, I re-listen to his audio journals & re-read his personal analytical work that he so fearlessly sent my way back in 2018. Sledge was 28 at the time, and I was 45. We'd met due to his willingness to step into the Samson Society meeting I facilitated at Lakeside Pres. At the time, lust was a sizable part of his life, and he'd found himself convicted therein whilst hearing a mutual friend of ours share his testimony (prior to referring his audience to Samson Society).
Sledge needing psychotherapy and likely meds for clinical depression, but this wasn't apparent to me initially. Instead, what jarred my attention (whilst parlaying my analytical thinking), to the massive degree that it did, was just how head-over-heels enamored he was of Rob from the moment we met.
Why did this matter?
Sledge loathed MS. Everyone in MS. Except for me and a woman at work that he'd grown fiercely attracted to. This combined with his brilliance made for quite the enigma.
So, how did he end up here within the Butt Crack of the USA? Essentially, his relentless efforts to climb the corporate ladder begrudgingly brought him here.
At this time, Sledge was newly married and actively working to reproduce (he & his sweet wife already had one offspring). Regarding his spouse, I'm fairly certain she knew her husband was mentally ill (she was a healthcare worker) yet was too afraid to put it into words. For Sledge had a razor-sharp tongue and zero tolerance for criticism from anyone sans using it in kind. Plus, they'd tried couples therapy to no avail. Nonetheless, she gave him what he seemed to care amount mostly. Her desire for sex. And this he obliged from her with absolutely zero resistance. For Sledge received seemingly otherworldly amounts of affirmation via cunninlingus / vaginal intercourse.
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It was around this time of year (early summer) when I headed to south AL for 5th / 6th grade church camp. This was a weeklong affair at a humble venue containing absolutely zero out-of-the-ordinary (from what I was used to in MS) natural beauty whatsoever. It was a flat, forestry landscape with a relatively small lake. Therein, each humble building was interconnected via gravel path / road.
It was only our church, First Baptist Church Jackson, that participated, therefore there were no opportunities to intermingle / befriend with fresh faces. In total, around 30-40 boys & girls were present for this scorchingly hot summer break week.
The year was 1985. Van Halen's game-changing album had just come out (in fact, they'd even performed in Jackson at the MS Coliseum). It defined this era pertaining to what it meant to be a young white male.
During the late evening of the day we arrived at the church camp, I headed to the communal bathroom, there within the boys' bunkhouse, to brush my teeth. Mid-way through my brushing, I heard the lone shower (that was being used) turn off. When the curtain was raked violently across the rod, our collegiate chaperone, Dan, put his wet, naked bod nonchalantly on display.
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Sledge's audio journals were meticulously narrated / recorded. The degree of vulnerability within is unlike any Samson deliverable I've ever received (& I've received A LOT of deliverables over the past decade).
When I first listened to them back in 2018 (immediately following their gifting), the density of the recordings was too much for me to process with any real foresight / diligence. That, along with how positively intimate they were, short-circuited my understanding of just how needy this young man truly was at the time.
It was almost like seeing him too (through that 1985 wall mirror) naked and wet, right there behind me, for such a time as that. As such, I did what I only knew to do. Smile awkwardly and continue forward with my teeth cleaning routine.
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Dan's collegiate frame was awe inspiring. Both his impressive height and muscular build classified him as intimidating. Not to mention the thick sandy brown chest and stomach hair that added years of maturity to his 22-year-old self.
And then there was his junk.
Let's just say, I didn't even know where to begin to process what rested there moistly between this stranger's legs, though when I now come across Ezekiel 23, it easily harkens back.
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Sledge's upbringing hadn't been normal, and he was just beginning to truly wrestle with the ramifications of that truth. I could not relate to his growing up years for it all seemed so pejorative. Particularly considering how intelligent / grounded his parents seemingly were.
And then from there, his college girlfriend (who eventually became his wife) allowed him to become her dorm room fuck buddy. And this went on "out of spite" (according to Sledge) in light of their parents' desire to see them complete their higher ed prior to marriage.
What served as icing on the cake though was the fact that Sledge's dad was a pastor. A devout, average-sized congregational pastor who loved both his wife and three children immensely.
At this time, Sledge was wondering out loud about pivoting and becoming a pastor himself.
And here I was just standing there at the sink minding my own business...
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Throughout my life, I've never ceased relishing the memory of seeing our collegiate chaperone's freshly showered physique, there on private display, in all of its glory. For though I'm certain there've been plenty of greater than or equally beautiful men for me to admire, my unexpected exposure to him, at such an impressionable age, taught me such the important lesson.
Timing is everything. Therefore, be alert. Some of the most (eventually) fruitful & memorable experiences of one's life may very well occur when you're least expecting it.
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