These 43 Years

Photo by KLK

Did you find your life’s calling?
Avoid heartbreak? Cancer? Strife?
Are you still kind and wise?
Did you have a nice life?

Did you have a wife and kids?
Did you not, but wish you had?
Do you know, I’ve not forgotten
how you changed, and made me sad?

I was so in-love with you, and
you with me, for quite some time,
until your fears came and stole
what I believed would be mine.

Something made you doubt us
and I watched you drift away.
I just knew you were “the one,”
until you weren’t, one sorry day.

I couldn’t stand the heartbreak.
So, I had to let you go.
I found a job I loved and
moved away, as you know.

_________

In time, I met someone
who pursued me very hard.
I wanted to be married
so, I let down my guard.

We worked together well.
But he had a messy past.
I should have realized that
our courtship was too fast.

We met some wonderful people
in our ministry for the Lord.
In time we added children,
whom I, of course, adored.

But that fairytale was broken.
My Prince Charming, he was not.
Nor was I, his Cinderella.
We were disappointed a lot.

I married all his traumas.
His past wounds, our present, fought.
And now he lives in Heaven,
freeing us from anguish wrought.

_________

I’ll bet you never once looked back,
or longed to re-begin. Yet,
through the years I’ve wondered
what we could or would have been.

I have questions without answers,
as the rejected always do.
It’s a pointless exercise –
to rehash what we didn’t do.

So, did I miss God’s best?
Or, did you? I don’t know.
But one day it won’t matter.
Earthly heartaches will let go. ¹

The lesson is: God uses all our
choices and mistakes, for
new mercies and new beginnings,
that our loving Creator makes. ²

To mourn a mythical past
is a lament I must put away,
because all these 43 years,
God sent gifts along life’s way. ³

Revelation 21:3-4
Lamentations 3::21-25
Matthew 7:11

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_________________________

As you can see, this poem is divided into three sections. In the first section I’m having an imaginary conversation, in the present day, with someone I dated several years before I met the person I ultimately married. In the middle section, I’m reflecting on what happened in the 43 years that transpired after that breakup. In the third section, I return to the imaginary conversation with the lost boyfriend and attempt to get some closure in my mind.

Prior to posting the poem on gratefulsue.com, I asked a good friend of mine if the poem was too vulnerable or too negative to post online. Her reaction surprised me when she said she loved it, could relate to parts of the poem, and said I definitely should.

I guess many people have regrets about “lost loves,” or second thoughts about who they married. Divorce is unfortunate yet can be wise or necessary in many instances. But, even if you choose to stay, despite the difficulties, cast your cares on God. He will send you “gifts along life’s way.”