When my step father commented to my husband that I read too many romance novels and expected life to be that way, I was absolutely offended.  I read those books to escape the drudgery of my own life, to have a pretty picture to think about when the vision of the future got too blurred out with the visions from the past. 

But in some sense, he was right.  There is a part of my heart and soul that have always been "hopeful".  It's the very nature of myself to hope in good, hope in better, and hope in that some of it would somehow someday come my way.  Mostly life was just one event after another, nothing shocking or extraordinary, no huge dissapointments but no large dreams come true either.  I was young when I got married and was still young when that marriage dissolved.  We were married and living together for the sum total of 9 months.  Another statistic.  Like my friend Adam says: It Happens, it happens to the best of us...

Then I met Husband.  And Husband seemed to be the premise by which romance novels are made of.  No Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty mind you, I'm talking good old Harlequin not the Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales.  I had never, never, and I mean NEVER been treated so kindly or respectfully in my life.  I was a young single mom, working, planning my back to school strategy, and he was this college degreed single guy with a stable and growing career.  And he liked me.  And I liked him.  And although I wasn't actually thinking about us together in a relationship, I was subconciously aware that if I had any chance at all, it would have to be achieved by tossing all my old "catch 'em fast" techniques away and relying on good old honesty and truth.  I knew, even as young as I was, that I did not want to repeat the mistake I'd just gotten disentangled from and that whatever I'd been doing up til then would only bring about the same results as in the past.  Time to reinvent my story. Turns out it was a rather futile effort.

The previous year and a half I'd spent reading self help books, parenting and family texts, relationship manuals - they all served their purpose.  I flirted, but was not outrageous or 'offering' anything.  We joked and laughed and talked when we took breaks together or met after work with a group.  We were just friends, both of us dating other people at the time, but I loved the heart of this man from the beginning.  The way he talked about his family, the coworker he was dating, his roommates - the way he treated people like coworkers, waiters and waitresses, and me - I envied the girl he was dating and would deny the jealousy that rose up when, sharing a lunchbreak together, she would talk about the date they'd just had, a kiss they'd shared.  I also wished her well though because I knew what was out there and if she could find someone as sweet as this man, then maybe there was still some hope for me after all.

In the end, and with no one hurt or betrayed,  he became mine.  He said it was the day we were comparing childhoods and our last failed relationships and he asked me, "so, what is it you DO want?" that he fell in love with me.  I had answered him, with all the innocent, naive, broken truth that I could muster from my barely 21 years.  "I want a husband who loves me.  Someone who is always going to take care of me and make me his top priority.  A man who puts his family first and is a good, and involved dad, a man who works and makes us safe. I want a man who can lead our family and be the foundation." 

Years later, with two kids in tow, we went back to that place where we'd both worked, and met, and fell in love, and I hesitated before going in, wondering if the girl he'd been dating back then, a coworker of ours, had gotten lucky after all, if she'd found another special someone, if it would look like I was showing off.  But she was out for the day and so I never had to confront anything after all.  Today though would be her turn to show off, her turn to be relieved, her turn to say, "wow, I'm glad I lucked out on that one!"

It isn't a romance novel, and though our story initially seemed destined to be a bestseller, it is just a story like any other sitting in the reject pile of some dusty editors office.  It's a tale so average and everyday and all around that it doesn't even bear telling... except to me.  It may be the same story as anyone else in the world - but I am not the same as anyone else.  I am me... and my story hurts like it's the newest story never been told.  I don't know how it evolved to this place, nor how it will work out, or what the end will read like.  Maybe you can see it unfold because of the generic been-there-done-that storyline, but for me it is unlike anything I've ever heard and each chapter can't even be anticipated to begin or end in any way I've seen before.

The author of my story is not me - I'd have never written a story like this.  I'd probably have written a romance novel.  Inspite of my efforts to rewrite or rework the plot line, I can only wait to see how it ends just like anyone else.  It's a story I'd rather not finish honestly.  I'm afraid that the end of this story might be the end of me. 

Whenever you read someone else's story, try to remember that no one person can ever know all the characters or the details of their development and the story you read is only the story that you take the time to read.  A quote I read says this:  We do not see things as they are, we see things as WE are.