The words seem rather simple and clear, and yet, in relationships, I have repeatedly over time fought the voices in my head and the warnings of my gut and tried to shove the doubt, and really all semblance of reason out the door because of a desire to be, I guess above all, part of a couple.  I have said it and written it so many times, I really do not mind my aloneness, and yet over and over I have been unreasonable and totally neglected to follow my instincts and stayed in or tried to make work, relationships that had no hope of success or promise of happiness.

Was it reasonable at 24, after getting news that my boyfriend had cheated on me with a girl who was a clerk at a donut shop, to try to forgive and forget and “make it work” even though every time I looked at him I pictured him kissing this other girl and making a human with her and could never un-know what I knew??  Was it reasonable at age 26, after finding out that my new hippie scientist 44-year-old boyfriend was never going to want to marry me and never going to want children and did not believe in using the word love, to stick in a relationship with him anyway even though the things that I really wanted out of life, were never ever going to be had with him??  Was it reasonable 18 months ago, after finding out that this person who had captured me with written words, was not at all in “real” life like he presented himself to be and was never going to treat me with the kindness and desire I needed, to keep breaking up with him and then “trying to make it work” each time when he promised it would get better and just to please be patient??

NO, NO, NO…um, no, none of it was reasonable.  I had been in love just five times, in my whole life, before now.  I had loved my first real boyfriend, I had loved the man I was married briefly to, and I had loved the three men mentioned above…that’s it.  I look at this man in my life now, number Six I guess he could be called…the sixth and the last man I will love.

My head and my heart and my gut are in agreement.  I believe I have found true love.  When I least expected it and was rather certain it just was not going to ever happen for me, it happened. I have no doubts.  I have a few concerns but they are totally not the same thing.  The first week I was in love I asked customers of mine, ‘do you think it is possible to fall in love that fast?’ and this customer told me that she went on one date and then got engaged and her husband chimed in that he “just knew, she was the one.”  I think that the whole beyond a reasonable doubt thing is very much valid when it comes to matters of the heart…matters of the court, well, a brilliant story telling lawyer can make you question what you are thinking, but in love, in real true love, I think that there comes a moment when you stop being worried and scared and doubting or questioning and you just know that THIS feels good and right and like it is and was supposed to be.  That is where I am now, right here right now, there, in that zone of confidence and security and certainty.  I never, not once ever, expected to feel like this again…I thought maybe I was done and that I had missed the boat so to speak.  I was consumed this spring and this last year, and to be clear, over time in all of my adult life, with more sadness than a woman should have to stand, but then in early July, everything was different, like when Dorothy walks out of the door into Oz.  I am nervous about a few things and there are some issues that I struggle with, but I have no doubt that I have found a person I was supposed to find, and I don’t think it is a bit unreasonable.