Through the ashes blooms a rose…

From author Tameri Etherton:

Have you ever held onto a Truth so absolutely that it becomes the very fabric by which you live your life?

Maybe you were young when it happened and you met this guy who you thought the sun revolved around. You really liked this guy, so much so that you would write letters to him and he to you. Sweet, rambling epithets of friendship and devotion.

But maybe he lived in another city from you so you decide to move there where you can be together. You imagine a life for you and this guy. A house, kids, a cat. No, a dog.

. . . .

Then one night you agree to meet him in a bar and he sits across from you wearing that shirt you love on him, with sunglasses in the pocket. They’re your sunglasses. The ones he took from you that day while hiking and you thought looked cute on him so you let him have them. The same sunglasses that are forever memorialized in a press photo the band did before their album came out. You really wish you had your sunglasses, but this isn’t about the sunglasses, it’s about the guy sitting across from you.

He’s telling you he never cared about you. At all. You should get over him, he’s no good for you, he never loved you. Move on.

. . . .

One day you meet a nice guy.

He’s probably the kind of guy you should’ve dated to begin with and saved yourself the hassle of heartache, but you didn’t meet him until that point in your life so you take a chance that he’ll like you.

He does. A lot.

So maybe you marry this really great guy and a few years later you have a son with him.

Then one day it happens. You’re at a party and you’re telling someone about the guy who broke your heart. The rat bastard band dude who said he never loved you. You’re telling the story as if he ruined your life when all of a sudden you realize, he didn’t ruin it, he helped make it.

. . . .

Then one day you’re writing a blog for other’s entertainment but really what you’re doing is writing the oddest love letter. It’s not really about that guy, it’s about your husband. Because in a few days you’ll be celebrating your 16th wedding anniversary. Sometimes you can hardly believe it’s been 16 years and others, you’re just so damn happy your husband has put up with you for that long because you know you’re a tad high maintenance and perhaps a little kookoo. Just a little, mind you.

But in the end you’re over the moon crazy for your husband and love him a little more each day. If you’d met him any sooner than when you did, you wouldn’t have appreciated how awesome he was.

Link to the rest at Tameri Etherton

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