You ever come to a date and it triggers a memory that you don't necessarily want even if it's not a a bad memory per se? That's where today is. It's not so much that the memory is unpleasant as it is unwanted.
On this day in 1997, I got married for the second time. Anyone who wants to do the math can look at how young I was and also note that I said second time. I don't regret it, but I do also acknowledge that I was very young.
The day was so full of excitement and promise. Even now, 21 years later, I remember it in every detail. But, though there was much good in that period of my life, there was also much heartache and all those promises were broken. More than broken though, obliterated. It became more than a pain, more than heartbreak. It left me scarred and a different person than the one I was before.
Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for the experiences. The things I learned have added much value to my life. At the same time, I am also wise enough to know that is the perspective of a 39 year old woman who has finally found the other half of her soul which is far different from the perspective of the girl I was at the time.
The truth is an older, wiser me would have never married him in the first place. But, older, wiser versions of ourselves often don't see the mistake ahead no matter how obvious it is to the rest of the world around us. And, it's not like I would have listened to what anyone had to say anyway.
He and I had known each other as small children. I used to kill his GI Joe men. I don't mean in a cute, let's play war way. I would literally behead them and then try to melt them with my EZ Bake Oven. Yeah, I was that sort of kid. I moved away and that appeared to be the end of that story.
Flash forward to high school. I was sick one day and that is the day lab partners were assigned. I got stuck with the partner no one wanted. Yay me. But, that lead to a relationship, my first marriage, and my reconnection with my childhood friend. See, his best friend was my old playmate. Of course, I didn't know that at the time and it was quite a while before the connection was made in part because of a childhood nickname very different from his real name.
Even without knowing that old connection, the attraction for me was instant and intense. It was the first time I even thought I might be in love. Some may wonder if that is the case, how he was my second marriage and not the first. There are so many details that probably don't need to be shared on that tangent and so many choices that were made from youthful impulsiveness.
With everything that came before the wedding day including the fact that we weren't even dating like 2 weeks before we got married, again I will state a wiser, older me would have never done it in the first place. But, the me back then thought I was in love. As is not unexpected, things just deteriorated over time. The last few days we were in a house together were brutal. And, in the days following the end, I wasn't always sure I would make it through. But, as I said in my last post, I am a survivor.
Throughout my life, big changes always come with a theme song. At the end of the marriage which lasted officially just over 4 years, my theme song was Trisha Yearwood's I Would Have Loved You Anyway. It was fitting for so many reasons and even more fitting for even more reasons looking back across the years.
About a year ago, I reached out to my ex on social media. We talked a few times, some apologies were made, and some old wounds finally closed completely. It helped heal the last traces of heartache. Do some of the memories still hurt? I suppose they do in a way but mostly they are just old scars that you feel sometimes when the weather is just right.
Today, I as I reflect on it all and as I sort through old files that have come unasked for and unwanted into my mind, I am glad for what that relationship was. It taught me a lot and helped make me who I am now. I am also glad that it ended and gave me the chance to move on, make other mistakes, and ultimately follow that long and broken road that led me to my one true love.
See, the song that my husband and I have as the theme song or "our song" as most people say it is Rascal Flats Bless The Broken Road. I know that without everything I experienced and learned in that relationship and the ones that came afterwards as well as before, I would not be the woman I am today. I wouldn't have six amazing children and a husband who I adore and who adores me just as much. I wouldn't appreciate all the little things that make our marriage what it is without knowing what a relationship without those things looks and feels like. I wouldn't have the life I have found by traveling on a smooth and easy path. Perhaps that is the real why of those unwanted memories, to remind us of just what it took to get to who and where we are now.
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