Pride Stories: The Podcast

A Calling Reclaimed: Dillon's Story

• Max Kringen and Tellwell Story Co. • Season 2 • Episode 11

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In this deeply moving episode of Pride Stories, Dillon navigates the complex tapestry of faith, identity, and musical passion. Dillon, a dedicated church musician, vulnerably shares his journey of embracing his authentic self as a gay man within a religious landscape that hasn't always been accepting. From the heartbreaking rejection he faced during a mission trip to the transformative sanctuary he discovered at Concordia College, Dillon's narrative is a testament to the power of resilience, empathy, and unwavering commitment to one's calling.

Through Dillon's story, we explore the connection between the LGBTQIA+ community and the world of music, celebrating the emotional freedom and imagination that queer musicians bring to their craft. Join us as we delve into the importance of creating safe spaces for self-expression, the joy of living authentically, and the impact of understanding and supporting one another's unique experiences.

Tune in now on Spotify and YouTube to hear Dillon's heartfelt story of self-discovery and community-building:

https://youtu.be/o3czecUO50I

Are you ready to share your Pride Story?  Visit https://wetellwell.com/pride-stories-podcast to learn more.

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Speaker 1:

I remember specifically interviewing for the current position I have now and my identity or how I was going to fit in as a gay person in to this new community was never a question. It was never something I was going to be worried about. Just because of what was, what doors were opened and what language was used. It was like very clear from the beginning. It was like very clear from the beginning and that was probably the first time I had ever felt that way, in that situation where I knew from the first conversation this was never going to be a part of my identity. I was going to need to hide.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to Pride Stories, the podcast where we celebrate the entire spectrum of experiences that make up the LGBTQ plus community. I'm your host, max Kringen from Tell All Story Co and Studio On this podcast. We're committed to creating a safe, supportive and inspiring space for our guests and listeners alike, so join us as we explore the heartwarming, sometimes painful and always inspired stories that make us who we are. Painful and always inspired stories that make us who we are. Hi and welcome to Pride Stories, the podcast where we're celebrating the entire spectrum of the LGBTQIA plus community. We believe that every story deserves to be heard, and I'm really excited to have our guest with us today. He's a Pride Story alum and we're really, really excited. So, dylan, welcome to Pride Stories the podcast.

Speaker 1:

Oh, this is fun and exciting. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 2:

I am so excited to have you so, dylan, so much has changed since you did your Pride Stories video close to two years ago. I suppose it would have been like two summers ago coming up. So I guess, to start with, can you just give us like a rundown what's going on, what's new, what's crazy, what's been going on in your life?

Speaker 1:

Well, since the Pride Story, yeah, almost two years ago, I've actually moved to the state of Virginia. I'm living in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Roanoke and kind of had a shift in career perspective anyway, and I lead a large church music program out here and work in the community as a musician with the symphony orchestra and, yeah, just doing some freelance stuff writing, composing. It's great.

Speaker 2:

I love it. So I feel like we skipped by some really important things in there. What took you to Virginia and you know what. How about this, how about that was a great primer. And can we kind of jump back and give folks a little bit of a primer as to what your pride story was, when you shared it with us on video? We'll also link to it, but we'd love for you just to share a little bit of your pride story.

Speaker 1:

So in my pride story I had shared about growing up in rural North Dakota as a gay teen and going off to college and feeling the call into pastoral ministry. And at that point, when I was giving my pride story, I had actually started seminary and was on that journey for about six months and then left after having some study and some indifference and perhaps conflict with the church and some really sour experiences that really made me stop and decide if that was what I wanted to do or not. And it was not, and so I continued on with music and found a way to be able to be a pastoral leader in some ways through music, able to be a pastoral leader in some ways through music. And about a month and a half after leaving seminary and trying to figure out what I wanted to do, I actually lost both of my grandfathers within a month of each other, and it was a very like eye-opening experience, knowing that my family, everybody that I had grown up around, had lived, was born in, and then I mean mostly they have died in the Dakotas, and there was always a desire from various members of my family that I remember. Oh, I wish I would have traveled more, I wish I would have seen this or I wish I could do that. And that was kind of a light bulb moment, especially for one of my grandfathers that loved watching the travel channel and like talking about food from around the world and stuff like that from what he had learned.

Speaker 1:

I said I think this is my time to go somewhere new and try something different. So I applied to 12 different church music positions all around the country. I didn't really care where I ended up, I just said let's look at the programs and obviously like salaries and stuff and see if this is like going to be doable to live somewhere. And so I did that and I went through rounds of interviews, I traveled to a few of the places for auditions and ultimately the program and the community that stole my heart was Roanoke and the people of Raleigh Court Presbyterian Church, where I work now. It just immediately felt like home and I knew that's where I was going and so in June I accepted the job and in July I moved and August I began my work and it's been an amazing nine months of work and getting to live in this beautiful part of the Appalachia.

Speaker 2:

Wow, so much has happened in less than a year.

Speaker 2:

Yeah it's a great. So, as you kind of think through that and like you've had a chance to reflect on your time here, I know you were doing seminary like mostly remote right, while working in churches in this area and, and you know, one of the things that I think is so powerful about travel is that ability to escape. That ability to more so than escape is reflect. And so, as you've had a chance to reflect, being there for nine months now, having really great experiences, what have been some of your thinking points?

Speaker 1:

The biggest thing for me is I never realized what was really possible for myself until I left. I just had grown up on a farm, in farming communities and then moving to Fargo for college. You know that was a place that was already really familiar with me. That's where the family went grocery shopping, it's where you went and hung out on Saturdays once you were in high school to go to the mall and stuff, because it was the closest mall. So it was already something very, very familiar to me.

Speaker 1:

And it wasn't until I lost all sense of like, comfortability and, moving 1200 miles away to somewhere completely new where I knew absolutely no one, to really have a lot of self reflection about who I wanted to be in the world and what was possible for me in the work that I wanted to do. But also it gave me a chance to really reflect and appreciate the place that I grew up in and the people that helped me along the way and perhaps experiences and things that I took for granted once being there just because it had always been everything I'd always known. Yeah, there's a lot of gratitude and a lot of healing. I think that's happened.

Speaker 2:

That's fantastic to hear. As you talk about that healing, you had shared some really heavy stuff as we went into your pride story about what it meant to be a member of the church, what it meant to be clergy, some of the hardships that you had thinking through. What did your journey in the church, what it meant to be clergy, some of the hardships that you had thinking through, like what did your journey in the church, what was that going to look like? And recognizing that you had some hardship in front of you. And so, as you talk about that healing what type of healing? As you're comfortable, would love to hear some of your reflection.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I guess, back home and kind of growing up, the way I had and the experiences that I had with the church and then even during my own journey of figuring out my call and working in the church and whether or not pastoral ministry was all of that, I remember, at the time of my pride story, feeling like I had finally found my place, I had finally been working in that and then, as I mentioned you know, there were experiences after that that were very altering, where it was kind of like when you are hiking and you step on a rock, thinking it's sturdy, thinking it's grounded, and then it like slips and you're like, oh no, like maybe this isn't what I thought it was, maybe I don't have a place in the church, maybe, and it just kind of spiraling. And I will say I think, having gone through the interview process of what I had gone through about a year ago and landing where I am now, I remember specifically interviewing for the current position I have now and my identity or how I was going to fit in as a gay person in to this new community was never a question. It was never something I was going to be worried about just because of what was what doors were opened and what language was used. It was like very clear from the beginning. And that was probably the first time I had ever felt that way, in that situation where I knew from the first conversation this was never going to be a part of my identity. I was going to need to hide. This was never, and it's not that I didn't have similar experiences before that.

Speaker 1:

But there was always nuancing. There was always a period of, you know, timidly like tiptoeing around the subject before I knew it was, and that just wasn't the case here and it was just very eye-opening and I think for the first time I exhaled into okay, I don't have to set myself up in this way, I just get to be. And also it allowed me to reflect on past experiences where I had to do that and be thankful in some ways to learn not how to nuance myself into a situation or how to be careful or anything like that, but to open my eyes and appreciate and perhaps discern other ways. Other people have to do that in different situations and show compassion and empathy for that. I think that's really the biggest thing it taught me was compassion and empathy in those situations, to where now I get to in my own ways and ministries help other people so they don't have to go through that.

Speaker 2:

Isn't that amazing when we have like those little moments of reflection that can just like take our empathy and like blow it wide open and be like? I thought I was empathetic, I thought I understood this demographic, I thought I understood X, y and z, but when you get just like the smallest glimpse how it just like bus open that door.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's wild. It is so wild and it is taught. It's kind of like when you've gone through that experience for me, I guess it doesn't make me think I'm like some wise psychologist or anything like that, but like I can analyze it from afar now and almost catch it before anybody even has to think about that, or even you know, it's just, it's just great to be able to be like oh okay, how can I make this not awkward for them? Or just let them know that this is, I get it and we're going to do this, and it's great.

Speaker 2:

What a gift that is going to be, as you're in your ministry right and you're ministering to people, and like what a gift that that's going to be to be able to anticipate some of those things but also just meet them where they are and kind of help guide them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah it's. I'm grateful for it.

Speaker 2:

So Dylan kind of take us back in time. Can you tell us about Dylan as a kiddo?

Speaker 1:

Oh Lord, what do you want to know?

Speaker 2:

I want you to start as early as you want to, Because what's a little bit strange about this one is I've already interviewed you for your Pride story. What's what's a little bit strange about this one is I I've already interviewed you for your pride story, and so it's almost like now we get to peel back some more layers and like understand how did the Dylan of today come to be right, this, this beautiful soul who is ministering to people that needed to? You know, escape from Fargo, which I will never advocate for escaping from Fargo, but it also sounds like it's done some really amazing things for you. But like there's so many steps on the journey to get there and I'd love for you to take us back to early Dylan.

Speaker 1:

I remember always being kind of spunky and like marching to the beat of my own drum. But I was also quite shy in terms of my like being around my family and stuff. Not so much. If you want home videos my mom probably has them all and it's kind of chaotic and some of the old pictures and stuff I see it makes me laugh because, like, I look at them and I'm like I remember that person because in many ways I'm still that same person, just kind of go with the flow free, have fun, that sort of thing. But I was always that way in my own home and then as I went out, that's kind of where the trepidation happened and overanalyzing, anxiety, shy personality came in and I just I remember always being that way.

Speaker 1:

And music, music has always been a part of that journey too, which is really, really interesting. There are videos and pictures of me pretending to be Shania Twain. With her there's a, there's a VHS tape of her world tour, I think from 1997. And it's about three hours long of documentary footage and I wore that thing out. We'd play it on the living room television, the big box television with the VHS the VCR.

Speaker 2:

Was it like a two tape set?

Speaker 1:

No, I don't think so. It's not Titanic.

Speaker 2:

long the two box set of Titanic, when you said three hours.

Speaker 1:

And that could be pushing it too. I remember it being very long and it had like all of her greatest hits at the time from different cities and I would like strut up and down the living room in front of the tv. I had like a play guitar and microphone where I would pretend to be her and I knew and yeah, like shania was my person growing up as as she should be for everybody, but yeah, there was always that sense of like spunk within that and music was always a part of that. I remember being very young and drawn to the piano and beginning lessons very young and yeah, I just always felt, with music, I guess, being connected something to something that was way larger than myself and knowing I was spunky or different or anything. In that way, music became kind of a comfort thing because it connected me to something bigger. I didn't know what it was at the time. Someone could probably say God, I don't know. At that age I don't think that's really what I was thinking, but it just took me to a different world.

Speaker 2:

I love it. I think one of the things that just kind of percolated up one. I feel like every young gay man has strut to Shania right, like who's been under boots, been under man. I feel like a woman. Even today when that comes on in a bar, I swear to God I could kick down an iron door with, like, let's go, girls, boom, boom. You know what I mean. Like, like, like as you get into it. So one I love that.

Speaker 2:

Fun fact Shania Twain was my very first CD I ever got and I want to say it was like the Christmas of like, probably 1996, christmas of 1997. And my brother I remember this very vividly my brother got garth brooks and I got shania twain and I was like I I didn't know yet, but I am positive that my parents knew by then like, so I, I love that. But I I would love to dig deeper into music because I think one thing that that maybe we don't talk about enough is is like music is such an incredible art form but it also is a really amazing escape and I think we, we both went to Concordia right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you went, you're a copper baby, you're just, like you know, 20 years after me but, like you know, the the music program is is riddled with with little gay boys and you know, I think I think that there is something really special about like the gay community and the music community and, like the, the circles feel like they overlap quite bit. I know you've done a lot more research and, like you've studied music in a much different way than what I have, because for me music was purely a social outlet. I was never a very good singer. I don't know why Mr Smith let me into the chapel choir, but he did and I'm forever grateful for it because those are some of my very, very good friends today. But I'd be curious, like, is there like an actual like connection between like the gay community, the music community and even like the church community in the center of that?

Speaker 1:

You know, I'm not 100% sure there of course have been, you know, historical about, about various composers and things, and there's been reading that I've done in that and some of them you know, prominent sacred music composers. There's historical speculation about handle, who wrote like the greatest work of western music, with messiah as what it's been deemed. I wouldn't't go that far but some people do and there is. I mean there's definitely speculation and some correlation, I would say. But I think one thing I love about the queer community and just being queer is there's a sense of freedom and I think, as an artist, a musician, it's through that sense of freedom or finding that place of freedom where you're just able to express everything, and sometimes the vehicle is through music and there, historically, for instance, one composer that we'd know for sure was gay was Tchaikovsky, and so when you listen, or I mean there are allusions, I mean he had male, whatever you want to call it, whatever they call it, back in history where they were writing love letters, I just call it gay.

Speaker 2:

I just call it gay history.

Speaker 1:

Tchaikovsky. You listen to some of his ballet music and I mean I had grown up and danced ballet here and there, a little bit dabbled. You listen to, to that and it is some of the most romantic and emotional music and I just think that there is not that queer musicians are superior, but it's a little less dry and I think there's a lot more imagination when you allow yourself to completely be free. And I think that's maybe why why that form of expression with music has such an overlap with LGBTQ people. And then, of course, historically, where music was being taught and composed and all that was the church, I mean that was the powerhouse for education in everything in societal civilization. So that's, I mean, it does not surprise me that that correlation is there.

Speaker 2:

So dime store psychology hat. But, like as you think about the queer community, the queer community tends to be like a little bit more artistic, right, like, as you said, a little more free, a little more and especially like in our tiny towns. Like I grew up in a town of like 800 I think you're also from a small town, right yeah, we had, I think, like 1800.

Speaker 2:

Maybe I that might be more than what it was, but anyway, still super, super small town and so, like the, the outlets for expressing an artistic self, they're very limited and one of the most consistent, most obvious places that that happens really is the church community. And so so I'd be curious to your take on like how, how, like as as queer people, as as young queer people maybe, before we were out of the closet, like we're really celebrated in the church, right, as like oh, this person is really musical, they're really talented. That's amazing, like way to go, like God's blessings on you. But then sometimes the like pretty significant switch that's flipped when you hear, either from the pulpit or from the church basement or whatever those things are, the like minimization of of lgbtqia plus people and like what a breaking of community, like in that?

Speaker 1:

I'd be curious because I I think I think from your pride story you mentioned a little bit of that. But what's your hot take? Like we're not going to have you know, like there's there's hope for the future for this art, because it's not, you know, grandma Lois playing or whatever you know. And I remember being really, really celebrated, yeah, like you had said, because not only was I gifted and those things, but I was a young person showing up and and being a leader and you know whatever way, playing for Sunday school music or you music, or directing the choir or something, just like those sorts of things. And I remember that pretty significant switch and I shared about this in my pride story being in the middle of North Carolina, I'm not far away from where this happened now, but Don't go back to the Pizza Hut.

Speaker 2:

Don't go back to the Pizza Hut.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, and that's kind of the. I mean, that was the community that I had built around myself and was celebrated in for having these musical gifts. And then how, how fast that all switched in the middle of a Pizza Hut.

Speaker 2:

Can you share that Pizza Hut story for for people that haven't seen your, your pride story?

Speaker 1:

I was in high school, let's say I can't remember when it was we were on a church mission trip to Taylorsville, north Carolina I think was the small time we were going to and it was following our mission work that we had done for the week and we were coming home and it was our first day traveling back and we were caught in the rain, really bad rain, and it was around dinner time. So we're like, well, let's just stop and get dinner. So we all piled into this random pizza hut. It looked straight out of the 90s. Still, it was classic and I loved it. And on every TV was all the major news stations. And I mean at that time I didn't have a cell phone or anything, so I wasn't on the internet knowing what was happening or anything like that. And I just remember seeing it on all of the TVs and all the major news stations announcing that same-sex marriage had been legalized by the Supreme Court. And I remember very vividly a lot of my classmates being very confused. This is our youth group, so we had middle schoolers and high schoolers all there and just very confused about like, well, what does this mean? And even our adult leaders were very conflicted back and forth as to what it meant. And I just remember the pastor at the time getting up and telling our whole youth group that this was not holy and that we were the leaders of the church for tomorrow and it was our job to change this and to fix this.

Speaker 1:

And I remember being absolutely horrified, unable to call my parents, and I was like hiding in the bathroom after I heard that, in the pizza hut, until it was time to get on the bus and leave, and I just, I just was. I could not believe the switch that had been the flip. You know, like we had just been doing mission work on the ground with people and we led a worship service together and I got to lead that in a very important way through music, and to just have that all of a sudden go down the drain and not matter because I was no longer holy or no longer like that's all I could remember hearing is, you know, we had just spent the week telling people they were loved by God and we were there to show them that through various service projects and work alongside them and build community together. And for that to then just I mean there were supportive adults there that were like well, don't listen, like it's okay. But I'm like, oh, but the pastor is telling me I am no longer holy man, like right, and I'm supposed to ride on a bus with these people and spend two more nights with them.

Speaker 1:

And like I, I didn't like come out right then and there and say, well, oh, don't say that, cause like I'm no, of course not. I was scared, quite literally. Maybe saying scared for my life was a little dramatic, but at the time it was not. I really I was like, am I going to make it home safe? I just wasn't. It was terrifying.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for sharing that again. I think it's really good context and I think one of the things that I've always been so impressed by you and your story on is, despite that really, really significant and traumatic experience that you had, you still stayed committed to your vocation. You stayed committed to it and you like doubled down. So, so tell people the next part of the story, because it uh, from what I remember, that's really where you said, hey, there's a better way, and like we can welcome our little queer babies into the church. So can you tell, kind of, the next part of the story?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So a little bit after this is when I actually became connected with the organ professor at Concordia College. At the time she was so wonderful and encouraging and I started taking lessons up there and I kind of knew from a couple of people in the town that I grew up in who were alumni that said, you know, you're really talented in music, you should consider going to college there. I mean, at that time I hadn't really put in any thought into college. I knew that it was probably something I should do, but college wasn't a big thing that my family did. I was the oldest sibling. My parents did not go. So it was like I don't know what college I don't know, how do you get in, how do you pay for it, like I don't know any of that. And so I was like, oh well, I guess I'll just take organ lessons from this teacher. She was the closest one and I remember being invited to different Concordia like music events through the church music program at the time and really being welcomed into that and, as a high schooler, being on campus and seeing queer people in the music building just doing their thing. There was a couple of queer identifying people who were in the organ studio that I got to meet and I was like oh, oh, wow. And not only that, but like it opened my eyes that, like church music could also be a full time career, not just something you get paid $50 a Sunday to show up and do right in the small country church vibe that I grew up in. And so it was like oh, okay, cool.

Speaker 1:

And then it came time to make the decision and I auditioned, got into Concordia, was on an Oregon scholarship, and it was like working. Even getting onto campus I was still kind of like I don't know what's this Lutheran school about. Is it really that safe? Is it? You know, like that whole thing? Like you're like okay, is this really what they say this is. And it was actually my freshman year of college was the year that Concordia, the campus ministry, accepted their Reconciling in Christ statement and it was like one of the first chapel services I went to that they were announcing it and reading it out loud and it was like that was the first time. I was like, okay, without a doubt I have a place here, even if not on campus, in this space.

Speaker 1:

And then I got involved and became the chapel musician and did that for four years and I did it just everything in my capacity to not only live into the space that was there and be a presence but also help people. Other people find that space and feel loved and the same sort of security that I felt in those circles and we had different groups. You know there was a little Bible study I led, called Queer People of Faith, one of the first years I was there and it was just so overwhelmingly present that it's like, okay, this is great. But then around the time you know that little I would say a year or so before that about pride stories, I mean I guess it was longer than that because COVID hit, like two years before pride stories.

Speaker 1:

But you know, covid hits and all the schools shut down and we're on campus and it's like we're off campus, no classes, no, nothing. And that's when it really became real to me about how do you take everything you had on campus and take it off campus, everything you experienced in college in these circles, there's got to be a place outside of that for people to experience what you've experienced. And that's when I really started beginning to feel the call into pastoral ministry, even though it wasn't going to last. Who knows, maybe it might come back. But that's where it really became real about getting in to the real world with it, and that's kind of where everything started to unravel and go into what is now kind of where everything started to unravel and go into what is now.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know I love that story and I love your grit and your tenacity. That kind of got you through that. I think one thing that and this is a new part of the story for me to learn is when Chapel actually announced that like hey, like this is what we believe and what I've always been so impressed by with concordia is the campus life actually lives a much more queer friendly. It's a very queer friendly campus, right you have. You have a little bit of a saying you know, gay by me which basically says like if, if, if you come closeted, you are and and you know it's said kind of flippantly and kind of like in a joking way, but like I think one of the things that's really powerful is like you learn on campus very quickly that like you're valid, you're safe, you're welcomed, there are other people like you and like in this community we have the ability to take care and give care to each other. And what I think is like really great is campus leadership is seeing that too right and they're starting to do that.

Speaker 2:

I know as as somebody I sat on the National Alumni Board and I was always a big part of the alumni group there as well, and they got a lot of flack the campus did from alumni because they wanted like so I love Paul Devery. Paul Devery, many, many moons ago, president of Concordia, he like forced everybody to come to chapel every single day so that chapel was packed every day, right, every single like staff member, every student like, and they're like we need, we need Paul, we need, you know, professor Dovery, dr Dovery, back so we can have this, dr, don't worry, back so we can have this. But what's interesting is, in the more modern Concordia it really has become this really safe space, and so I'm really glad that you also got that experience and like they even made it like Facebook official. Yeah, just wait, do you even know what Facebook official is Like? Is that?

Speaker 1:

Oh, yes, I don't know, I don't know I don't pretend, I'm an elder.

Speaker 2:

I am an elder gay now, so like I don't, I don't even know anymore, but no, my youth choir kids.

Speaker 1:

They love to school me. They think I'm so old because I don't keep up on things and I'm like lord.

Speaker 2:

Lord, help me dylan, do you know what a tiktok is?

Speaker 1:

yeah, no joke or like some slang thing. I'm like I don't know, no, I don't, and I learned, like the other week, that nobody has Facebook anymore, apparently. I'm like what are you talking about?

Speaker 1:

the kids don't for real, like I fought hell and high water. By the time we had internet in our house, you know, I was like I want a Facebook and my parents were like, no, you don't need Facebook. And I'm like I want a facebook and I remember getting a facebook. It was a big deal. It's how you could, like incognito, hit on your crush poke.

Speaker 2:

Apparently poking's coming back I know, like I was just okay.

Speaker 1:

Maybe that's not true, I don't know. I saw it on the socials um like face someone.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, okay I love it also. Side note I don't know where this little like twang came from. I think you've been spending too much time in virginia because like there was a little bit of like well, I don't even know right and that was very, very sweet.

Speaker 1:

But it has slipped in. I will say like I don't even notice it sometimes and it wasn't until I called, or my parents had come to visit at christmas, or like my mom and my grandma were here, and when I went home right after easter I was just actually in fargo when you were messaging me about doing the podcast I was like, oh, funny, I'm just leaving today. Like people are like, oh, like what you say, that different. I'm like, oh, okay, I don't know.

Speaker 2:

You did just say grandma, almost like a M-A-W. So, dylan, as we head into wrapping up our time together today, I'd love if you could take a couple minutes and kind of give some advice specifically around. You know you had to leave to find yourself. You had to leave to kind of figure out some of those things, to do some of that healing. So I'd love you to just kind of chat a little bit about you know what advice you have for people, so maybe they don't need to leave, maybe they don't have the ability to leave and like what they can do here, but then also any anything else that you want to share before we wrap up our time together.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think the number one piece of advice I have now, almost two years later, after the Pride story, in my first round of advice giving, I guess, is to not limit yourself. I remember having a very fixed idea of what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go, and I inherited the very strong Norwegian trait of being stubborn and I was not going to let that change. And I felt by limiting myself it became weight that was almost unbearable. And the freedom of letting go and letting the spirit move and the world move, the universe will take you where it is supposed to take you. God will lead you where God is supposed to take you. God will lead you where God is wanting to lead you. And there is an absolute lesson in just trusting the process and letting go. That is so freeing and exciting. And, yes, for me it led me away from Fargo, but I don't think that's necessary for everybody. I think there is a lot of freedom in what is there.

Speaker 1:

I have a couple of friends of mine who have made major career shifts recently in Fargo that it's just so exciting to see that when a person is able to let go and just see what happens. I'm a very type A person. So that's very hard, but there's a lot of magic in it and the people who are cheering you on, no matter what, are the ones you should listen to, and they will be the voice that will resonate with you. If you listen to it and you'll end up where you're supposed to end up. And as long as you're authentic to yourself and take life with a positive attitude and really just live life to the fullest, everything will work out the way it's supposed to. I really believe that, especially where I've ended up and the life that I am so blessed to live right now.

Speaker 2:

Wise beyond your years that I am so blessed to live right now. Wise beyond your years. Dylan, thank you so much for joining us for version two of Pride Stories, the podcast. Maybe we'll make you just a recurring segment and you can update us in a year with everything that's going on in Virginia land and always a pleasure to talk to you. Thanks so much for joining us.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for having me. This has been so much fun.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for listening to Pride Stories, the podcast. I'm your host, max Kringen, and it's been an honor to bring this story to your ears. Pride Stories is proudly presented by Tellwell Story Co and Studio. We have an incredible team that makes this podcast possible every single week. If you've been inspired, moved or entertained by anything you've heard in this episode, please consider supporting our mission. You can do that by subscribing to the podcast, leave a five-star review or simply share it with a friend or family member. Your support helps keep the stories alive and resonating, and if you feel compelled to share your own pride story, we'd be honored to listen. Please visit the link in the description of this episode to get in touch. No matter where you are in your journey, whether you're out and proud or just finding your voice, remember you have a story to tell and it deserves to be heard.