Today, I spent the afternoon with the man of my dreams.
I met him when we were a never-been-kissed sort of seventeen-years old.
He was not just my first kiss.
He was there for me when I was on top of the world, living my teenage dreams — and he was also there when everything fell apart.
He was right by my side when my doctors told me I had cancer – something I would learn to be Hodgkin’s Disease. He was also there a month later when my mother told us she had breast cancer.
He held my hand through the best of times and the worst of times, truly in sickness and in health. He brought laughter and lightness to my world as my mother and I navigated the darkness of hospitals, treatments, vomiting, surgeries and hair loss.
When I broke down in tears, he wiped them away.
One night, sitting in his car in my driveway, I sobbed uncontrollably about my teenage drama — I just wanted to be normal. I didn’t want to have cancer I wanted to go to the prom with a full head of hair.
Justin held me in his arms, wiped away my tears, looked straight into my eyes and said in his best deadpan voice, “Jamie, you will never be normal … and who would want to be normal, anyway?”
He always knew how to make me laugh.
A year later, college and real life and growing up started to happen and we ended our relationship.
It only took fifteen more years for us to find each other again.
On Facebook of all places.
I often wonder what would have happened if we never broke up. If we had stayed together as a couple through college. Where would our lives have gone? What road would we have taken together? And, would we have ended up here, in this very same place?
We’ll never know.
Whatever it took for the two of us to find each other again is unbelievably hard to fathom. The timing, the coordination, the chance that a girl on the east coast could reconnect with a boy on the west coast?
It’s not an accident.
But, at times, it feels like we are Accidentally In Love.
Like a second chance, two young hearts and old souls finally reconnected. As if we were always headed in this lovemore direction anyway. As if we would have met on this path no matter which decision we made.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
As I sat down to write tonight, Etta James came through the speakers on my Pandora Radio channel.
At Last.
I couldn’t say it any better.
Jamie,
Today’s blog was beautiful, poignant and familiar. But not familiar enough. I do wish we had the opportunity to become actual friends in high school. I think we would have really liked one another.
The poignancy because I am so very happy that you got to live your life as a survivor, while your mother, also always a survivor, did not receive the full reprieve.
The familiarity because I can picture the descriptions of teenage life and love in Twin Falls. Having a similar situation with Grant Humphries, right down to the reconnection through Facebook, makes me laugh at how small our world really is and how full circle we do come. While Grant and I were only friends in high school, we have made a similar trip back to each other, as have you and Justin.
I wish you both all the best and am confident we will run into each other at some point. Take care, Steph
Ah, thank you Stephanie, for reading along and for sharing your journey too! Yes, it is a small, small, world that we share isn’t it!? Sending you lots of loving wishes to you and Grant. Love, love, love!!!
Hello Dear Jamie,
I loved this post! Mostly because I can so closely identify with it. Like you and Justin, Tom and I were childhood (teenage) friends that found each other again after 25 years apart! We call it our “long awaited coming home to one another”. It is truly a beautiful thing. Thanks for writing such a wonderful post! XOXO…..Becky
Thank you Becky! I love that: “long awaited coming home to one another” – it’s so perfect! And, doesn’t it make it so worth it now? Sending you love
Wow what a great post! Unlike the other two responders, I have not experienced the same thing, but the road not taken (or taken many years later) is always an interesting question mark of life. My opinion is that life has a way of righting itself when individuals really focus on what it is they want.
Yes! I think you are “right” on the way life has a way of to righting itself. Indeed.