My memory fades, there are many things I have forgotten.  It is not that those things were not important, it is that I was foolish enough to somehow fail to hold onto them.

But although my memory is much a blur, there are many things that stand out in my mind as bright as a smile from a child on Christmas morning.  This blog is about one of those memories, and the lesson I have just now learned from it in life.

The day I fell in love with my wife she was huddled in the hallway talking to the man that she loved (it was not me).  She was talking to him and hurting and wanting him back in her life.  I was just a fling, nothing more than a toy to be played with and thrown away.

I watched her huddled in the hallway on the floor, and it hurt me for many reasons.  It hurt me that she was loving him and I loved her.  And it also hurt me that she was in pain.  She had a little notepad and on it she was doodling, as she often does while talking on the phone.  She just writes on the notepad whatever it is that pops into her mind.

I went to bed and lay there for a few hours when finally I heard her slowly hang up the phone and creep into the room to keep from wakening me.  She climbed into the tiny little bed we slept in and I guided her head onto my chest and I held her in my arms and let her cry her pain into me, until she had finally fallen asleep.

As she was fast asleep I climbed out of that bed and sneaked a peak into her notepad as I would, being oh so Jealous, and this is what I read;

Now I have to say I always thought that was B.S.  I always thought if you loved something you needed to hold onto it as hard as you can and never give up.  I also think that my wife thought the same way because she also held on for all those years to our marriage.

But then something happened, she let me go.  She finally moved out because I wanted her to.  And then I came back.

Now I have been asked to hold on, but life has taught me a lesson, holding on wont work.  You have to let go.  So I am, as much as it feels wrong, life has taught me that it is right.  Holding on will only make things worse.

Of course I feel like the inevitable result is this:

But that too I will be able to accept because I know that in the end I gave everything I had, And I enjoyed most of the journey even though there were bad things hanging on for the ride like ice chunks in our wheel wells.  If the next 10 years of my life are better than the last 10, I will consider myself a lucky man.

And so, with this.. I close my eyes and fall.  Nobody knows how long I will fall, but I do know that at the bottom I will either be caught by someone I love and together we will make the most of it,or I will hit the ground with a LOUD SICKENING THUD…..

But it won’t end there.  Know that I wont lay there and die.   I will pick myself up off that ground, brush off the dirt and MOVE ALONG.  So don’t feel sorry for me, and I wont for you.