I also encountered nature’s representation of what I am experiencing in my life – am I the Painted Desert or the Petrified Forest? Anyone who has been reading anything I have written knows my answer. I am the Petrified Forest. For almost fifty years, I have been scared of everything. Like those trees that stayed in one place so long that they fossilized and became rock, I have stayed in my very small space just being. When you are scared of having feelings, scared of being hurt, scared of being disliked, scared of being more than you are, scared of being put in your place, you don’t do anything. I have lived this way so long that I have gone from being scared of every little thing to being petrified of living. I have been a Petrified Forest.

So today, I imagined myself as the Painted Desert. A place so full of shapes and colors and beauty that I can do and be everything. The Painted Desert decided not to be just one color but to be every color. Parts of the Painted Desert are rounded hills, some are jagged cliffs, there was an area called Tepees because of the shape, and an area called Newspaper Rock because of the sheets of rock. It isn’t just one shape. It’s every shape. The Painted Desert wasn’t just some things, it was all things, and all of these things made it beautiful. What an amazing thing to be the Painted Desert.

As I was leaving today, it all came together for me. The National Park is actually named incorrectly. It is called Petrified Forest National Park, and the Painted Desert is part of it. In reality, it should be called Painted Desert National Park, and the Petrified Forest should be part of it. Here is my reasoning. The Painted Desert was everywhere. It was what you could see wherever you were, in your car, on a lookout or hiking a trail. The Petrified Forest was hard to see. You could not see it from your car or even from a lookout. You had to be on a trail almost right next to it to even know what you were seeing.

We are all meant to be the Painted Desert National Park, and the Petrified Forest is just a part of us. We are meant to be all things, colorful and full of different shapes and beautiful. We are meant to shine and show the world everything we have to offer. We are meant to be special to ourselves and to those who truly see us. Those pieces of Petrified Forest are only a small part of who we are. They are things that only those who really care and really look can see. The Painted Desert was not diminished by the Petrified Forest. On the contrary, it was enhanced by it. It took the beauty and made it more interesting. I know how it’s meant to be; I just have to make it happen.