67 degrees. Windy. Not a cloud in the sky.

Holy City springtime.

Nice just walking. Getting toothpaste is a good excuse.

Breathe deeply. Feel the peace. Light supper out with salad for later. Bald peanuts on the way home.

Food Lion is packed, so it’s Dollar Store Crest on the way back.

Picked up around the house today. It needed it. Still needs more; will be good for you this weekend. Need to get dry food for Bill & Ted, which means they’re happy having wet food for now.

Friends want to spend time. Ashley and Kenneth asking when you’re doing Table Rock again. Jimmy and Matt wanting to game more often. Jared wanting to come down and visit home.

Folks are doing well. Dad’s excited to go booking again. Glad they’re wanting to stay active and you can help. Monday dinner might just begin being a thing again. That’d be good.

Job going well. Going to change your hours to 9:30-6 so you can have less traffic, get more done, and be more consistent.

Zoom meeting for work when you get home. You’ll be fine; it’s just listening. Books can wait until Monday, which will be busy but that’s what’s good for you right now.

Might just stop messing w Saturdays. Won’t get as many good reviews and postage will cost more, but it’s fine. We will only get bit if something is expedited, and if that happens, you can FedEx it. Ought to have done that a long time ago.

Passing by a big family eating at Rio’s on the way back. Loud. Happy. Wonderful to see, but glad your small family is quieter.

Getting closer to Him. Want less negativity and stress. There’s just no need for it. It’s pointless. You have support and love from friends and family. Blissfulness in your home. Contentment. Dipped a toe into ChristianMingle just to see and that won’t be a problem if and when you’re ready. Well, when He’s ready for you to.

Easter will be back in the sanctuary after so long. No reason to wait though. YouTube just isn’t the same and James Island just isn’t that far.

Money is tight right now. Savings are gone and you’ll be on low spend mode for months. Inflation alone will be crushing, but you have enough for your base expenses. It’s a mode you’ve been in several times, but it will pass. Another trip to KY might be in the cards. Who knows.

PT wellness guy suggested local healthy delivery meal service he used to take that off your plate. Roughly same cost as groceries. Low cost gym is on the way home, just $10/mo. Might be worth it to get that ship righted. Will try if funds permit.

Finishing off the last of the big bottle of rum you’d bought last time she left and stashed at the office. After that, might just cut out alcohol for a while. You don’t need it, it costs money, and is empty calories.

Old problems are trying to find a way in. Sleeping is back to a problem. Slept so well with her there. Will be fighting being a night owl so long as you’re by yourself. 😂

Contentment is what one must have before they can truly be happy. Some will never allow themselves contentment. Some will fight it every step of the way because they just need that strife in their lives. It’s not something you understand, and don’t need to.

One step at a time. Move with His purpose in your life. The further you get from Him, the colder you feel – and there’s just no reason to feel that way.

None.

Home sweet Casa.

She helped you pick up several. Cared about your health. Will stay with it. The one treat this time will be trying Goya Ginger beer since they were on sale.

Even got firewood. Just wanted to. It’s alright to miss her. Something small has begun in your life. Something good. Something warm. You don’t know what it is, but you feel it. Don’t chase it off. Good habits are good things. 🙂

Amusing.

A week ago tonight, you had the argument that saw her leaving a second time.

Three years ago tomorrow was your first WordPress post.

Not that it matters. Just interesting. You usually have a blow up and don’t speak to each other around April each year. Chances are April 2022 won’t be any different now.

Either stop now or read to the end.

Three years of them. Lots of things left in those drafts.

Lots left unsaid. Most for the better. Some maybe she’d have been better off feeling your anger. Sometimes people need to realize how things hit.

Maybe she would have realized you weren’t nearly as much of a pushover had you shown her that side of you earlier on.

Either way, you know what it’s like to say something you want to take back.

She complains about men so much at the drop of a hat while treating you like you were a tenth as bad as all the other scumbags she’s been with. The Art Teacher. The Gun Store guy. The guy she married and moved to Canada for after meeting twice that liked taunting her. The Cancer boy that won’t stop lying that she will never cut loose.

Given her terrible decisions regarding men, it’s not surprising she let you go so soon. Loving? Honest? Emotionally stable? Good relationship with your family and wanting one with hers? Educated, responsible, with a desire to have a career? Wanting to build a life with her and try to make her happy?

You’re not perfect. Not even close. But one quick perusal through the idiot gallery of her choices and you are definitely the one that doesn’t fit. You are better than every last one of them and it’s not even close.

What’s to take back? The truth? The truth is that what she couldn’t handle was you actually truly good for her. Just a few more months and it’s back to the lying punching bag of an ex boyfriend, the job she hates, and near-suicide trips to the hospital for the cage she wants back in so bad.

You’re not stupid. She’s not cut out to be single. Could never handle it. Loves sex too much and she’s not some slut that doesn’t need an emotional connection.

Maybe you’ll publish this, maybe not. Looking back at all those drafts at your pouring forth your love for this woman and anger when she’d ram her head into a wall repeatedly and blame anyone but herself? Who knows…

Don’t complain about men when you choose to spend your life with scumbags and ditch the one you finally found that was actually good for you. Etc.

Sunday she felt the same way. The ADD post and all the anger you could tell was behind it. Like she had the right to shove you back in a friend zone as if the last 4 months hadn’t happened.

Or found yet another excuse to blow way out of proportion to act like you weren’t someone she could ever be with. Oh no! ADD! Or pills! Too close to your folks! Or games you didn’t play nearly as much as she claimed like you couldn’t hunt down time played stats! Quick! Run to a gaslighting abuser and give him a million chances! Honey, just say whatever you need to say to sabotage yourself and get it over with.

The gaslighting she pinned on you was even more insulting. Given how much you treasure truth and honesty how she’d interrupt and confuse you and play gotcha at something she claimed you said that didn’t even make any sense if you had.

You could tell, because she never wanted clarification. The point was to argue, not communicate.

Best of all? Stabbed you with your most painful memory over and over. Your own child. What shook your faith to its core and devastated you for well over a decade… throwing it in your face again and again until it didn’t even faze you and then had the gall to hold “humiliating her” over you…

…For chastising you for letting your mom and dad do so much for you… and then calling her mom to yell at you when she wanted you to buy the plane ticket. Why not buy her own daughter’s ticket; you were beyond nice to her and never had to be. For her to treat you that way? Disgusting.

The childishness of it all made you laugh. Then the hypocrisy made you cackle. Oh the ‘humiliation’. Your daughter’s name would’ve been Virginia Grace. And now you’re numb to it. Numb. To THAT.

Numb enough to laugh when she screamed at you for letting your folks do everything for you… before running to her own mom when she didn’t get her way.

Yeah you’re angry. You can’t not be and have a shred of self respect.

You were done. Phone. Text. Messenger. Facebook. That old Twitter account. Email address. Even WordPress. You blocked it all. Severed every way she could interact with you. You’d leave her quiet since she always had to have the last word like true drama queen…

And then… not ten minutes later. The sermon. He was not smiling down upon you. 1 Corinthians 13, you hypocritical idiot. Love. And what you say it means to you…

Re-enabled WordPress and text.

She’d deleted the post. Hasty words. She didn’t mean them.

It was turn to regret your anger.

God’s Plan. For years you’ve prayed for her. He pushes you towards her… pulls you away… there always seems to be a purpose.

You don’t just love her because He wants you to. You love her because you love her.

But it’s more than that.

Maybe you don’t need to spare her from your anger. You are slow to anger when it comes to her. Just…her.

Maybe she needed to know that side of you too. You say you’re big into honesty after all; why not be honest when she needed to hear how you felt?

Whatever. Too late for a lot now.

But Sunday… God didn’t want you to shut the door. You want her to know how serious you took that. And how it stopped your anger in its tracks. That can’t happen unless she knows that anger.

How even if it’s justified, there’s a point where you’re a sanctimonious prick if you hold onto it. There’s a lesson there you need to learn. She could get a lot out of it too.

And it’s still there… but you want it gone.

Maybe this truth will piss her off and make her want to sever you. Hope not. Her choice. As it always has been and will be.

To let this sit in Drafts, or to Publish?

What’s left? Love? Always, but it’s clear that she doesn’t feel the same.

Anger? No, you hate being angry at her. That’s why there are so many half-finished Drafts.

Truth? The truth. You gave her your word. And you claim you are a good man. Loyal. Loving. Most of all… Honest.

Another cold April.

Publish.

Sooth my heart, Lord. I can handle sadness. Enough with the anger.

Thank You for yesterday’s sermon.

Thank You for today’s odd Earworm.

And as always, thanks for the cats.

¹ If I speak human or angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ And if I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, ⁵ is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. ⁶ Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. ⁷ It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

⁸ Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. ⁹ For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when the perfect comes, the partial will come to an end. ¹¹ When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put aside childish things. ¹² For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known. ¹³ Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love—but the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13. Surrounding both of us during these days that are – no matter how things go – a pivotal time in both of our lives.

I’m going to read it every day for a little while. Feel free to join me if you wish.

Business lunch. Discussing different directions. Picking up pieces. Boss already pursuing Plan B. Bad news from last week already leveling off. Customer request increased from four in April to 8 to 10. Week in April might still need me. Bookstore fate unknown but haul of 96 from Hilton Head to enter soon. No immediate plan in case of KY trip other than week vacation setting. A month up there would be helpful. Kept the thought in the back of my mind if things went wrong and I needed to get away for a while. Bookstore I want to keep if I can. Reasons.

They wanted barbecue. Home Team or Swig n Swine. I wanted Home Team because it had only been 8 hours, and the only Valentine’s Day I’d ever enjoyed just wasn’t that long ago either. Left it to chance, and of course I ended up staring where we sat that night. Another day after a blow up where we were in limbo. I didn’t care. One of those stupid holidays came and I had anyone, let aloe her, no friend zone was going to hold me.

Corner of the warehouse was cold. Had never used the term ‘filled with emptiness’ but no other terms would suffice. Seven books to go out. Her Google page still logged in. Logged out instantly. Not my stuff. Signed in as myself. Dolphin wallpaper still there. Wasn’t going anywhere. Just books. Shelves. Envelopes. A message of someone claiming their book never arrived. A response of the tracking info showing it was picked up at a Mississippi post office. Nothing I hadn’t been doing for a year. Cold though. Not cold, just… cold. A warm cold. Her hands had placed them there. Looking over each with care. Held each of the seven she’d entered and there was a warmth in the cold. Not warm, but… warm.

First wave hit hard. Folded in as needed. Nothing I haven’t gone through before. Waves ebbed and flowed. Sadness. Hope. Anger. Warmth. Cold. Frustration.

Placed call to resolve issue with vendor that had me frustrated the day before that set me up for my side of the blame. Took eight minutes. Eight. Eight minutes of patience might have kept me more calm last night. Add blame to frustration. Anger rippled across all day. Anger at her. It bounced off, just as her daggers did upon the new armored heart last night. Like shells splintering on a battleship’s hull, shattering with fragments flying off towards their true enemies, those who made the hull so damned thick over so many years.

I have not held her hands for the last time.

God, please give us wisdom, grace, strength, but most of all… time. For whatever purpose we are meant to have in each other’s life.

And thanks for the cats.

Now is the time you’ve always waited for.

Now is the time you will look back on in the years to come as the moments of truth in your life as you continue barreling forth past the halfway point.

Now you can make a difference…or fail to.

Do you feel that? It’s Possibility. For weal or woe. You see the Long Term. Perhaps to the detriment of the Short Term. Now is the time to see both.

Now is the time. You’ve tasted both victory and defeat in the last two months. Frustration and bliss. Do things rest on a knife’s edge? Maybe. Maybe not. So…they probably do. But that knife has two edges, and thus there is Hope.

And even if there is but one ounce of it, it is infinitely better than defeat.

Things are working behind the scenes. Him. Work is going well. Bright things on the horizon if everyone works hard and plays their cards right. Thin rays of sunlight through bloated clouds of darkness.

You’re going to have to grow to see them truly and harness them for the two of you. But you can…and you will.🦁

She’s going to have to grow to see them truly and fight through the walls of pain and fear that stand between her and her hopes and dreams. Will she? Time will tell.

If she could see through your eyes, it would be clear as day. And in all the time she’s been here, you haven’t gotten a chance to. Weekends flare up constantly as something tries to stop you. Doubts creep in. Confusion. Fear. Then anger.

Truth. The most important virtue. Be True. To yourself. To her. To God. You know the Truth. You feel it. You’ve doubted too. Fallen as well. You have much growth ahead also.

But in times of fear, it’s the need to hold true to who you are, for her sake as well as yours that must define you.

And it does. Hold true. You both will be fine. Be strong where she is weak, and she will do the same for you.

There just aren’t too many greater challenges to overcome given who the two of you are, and that means His fingerprints are all over this.

Now is the time to hold true. Fight your tendencies. Times Squared. Joyfulness is not your default state; giving up to pain and loneliness are. It is because of Him that it burns so brightly within you.

Pray for her in her battles to see what you have. Fight by her side as needed.

Now is the time. For however long the knife rests on its edge, Now is the time.

Thank God… Now is the time. 🕊🐬🌹🦁😃

Finally Blue sky. Beautiful day. You aren’t downtown for Second Sunday.

How do things keep going wrong?

It doesn’t make sense.

Nothing makes sense.

You love her. She loves you.

You both regret last night.

Give her time.

You never have to understand.

Have faith in yourself, and in her.

It’s time both of you grew up.

Alone. Again. Whatever you want to eat. Whatever you want to do. Two days ago you were happier than you can ever remember . Now you can’t imagine going back but here you are. All the things she doesn’t like. YouTube. Games. Online stupidity. Things you’re stuck with now.

Cooking with her was amazing. Everything was amazing. You didn’t want to spend your time doing anything else. You wanted to share your hobbies with her to feel them from another perspective sure, but it was a whole New World with her. Every night even though you didn’t go anywhere it was a whole New World and you loved it.

You screwed it up. She was here in your arms and you screwed it up. You got mad instead of letting God guide your words.

It wasn’t even 48 hours ago. Everything you had looked forward to for so long… now here you are. Son of a bitch those Friday nights are back.

She says it’s for the best. Sitting in front of the TV. Wasting your life alone rather than sharing it. There’s no way in hell this is for the best.

This is purgatory.

All the things you’d saved to do with her. You thought you would have more time.

damn you for giving her your word you’d keep sober.

It took years for her to get out of that prison and mere hours to get out of your paradise.

God has a plan. Just fucking listen to Him next time. And pray maybe one day there might somehow be a next time.

You’d live anywhere with her in a few years when you were able. Anywhere. Your paradise is a prison if you don’t have someone and she’s the only woman. The only one. She’s just the only one.

Please just don’t let this be the end.