Soaring Solo 2010

[Gardener]

hm,

I know what you mean. I started over at 33; it was no picnic, but it was nothing like this (at 52 when all this began). All I can say is...one breath at a time.

Thanks. Boy, do I know that feeling. I started over @ 38. Love of my life. Her and her children were a mid-life gift from above. 16 great years.

And, ultimately, she had to - had to - run away. Snodderly (and others) confirmed my gut instincts.

I'll start over again. But nothing exclusive. Not for me. She ran, ended it legally (and emotionally, etc.,) but I had my one-in-a-million wife. In my heart of hearts (if no longer in my life-of-lives), I had my one true wife.

I vowed to love, honor, cherish her and love her children as my own.

I did not break my vows: I love (agape) her as a person, cherish who she once was - but is no more - and I still, and always will, love her children as my own.

So I have broken no vows (nor in the above sense, will I - could I).

But there will be no other wife. Ever. She was it. I'm thankful for that which was.

What it was is irreplaceable in my soul. So I'll not try to replace it. It was, fortunately, for seventeen years.

And it was, unfortunately, only for seventeen years.

But it was. Not many people have that even once in a lifetime.
I did.

I will not attempt to replace that which - despite all that transpired in the last 20 months - I had.
And will never have - nor need, nor want - again.
I truly lucked out once.
That's over, but that was enough. That was it.

I cannot wish ill upon someone I loved so deeply for so long.

And just as that piece of paper in 1992 simply confirmed a marriage that had already taken place in the deepest sense, the subsequent piece of paper in February of this year did not - could not - negate that marriage that had taken place.

She is gone. It is "over". But there will be no other. There can be no other.
Philosophical - and repetitive - tonight, I know.

But true.