The beautiful gift

A week and a half ago, I learned something that broke my heart in two.  As I've spent the last 10 days trying to wrap my brain around the situation, I must say I've gone from sad to mad to eventually (just today) thankful.

Last spring a corresponding began...said corresponding went through the summer months and well into the fall.  At which point, a bit of omitted information was brought to the surface.  It was a small omission...  No worries though because everything can just stay the same, right?  No.  Not really.  It's funny because, HAVE YOU EVER NOTICED THAT, it's always the omitter who wants everything to stay the same???  All the while the omittee, who doesn't know what's happening, is supposed to just be fine with whatever it was that was omitted.

A few more weeks of corresponding...and then somehow on January 3rd at 5 a.m. I am sitting in the Helena, Montana airport (Gate #4) waiting to board an ice cold airplane when I scroll through a social media website and see a series of "Congratulatory" pictures...and a bride and a groom.  

I sat there among strangers and cried...cried because I was not only saying goodbye to dear friends in Montana but also goodbye to what I had actually ventured to hope for / about.

You see this hoping-thing...having hope...and actually hoping can sometimes turn out to be heartache.  It can turn in to copious amounts of coffee and maybe a batch of dark chocolate chip pumpkin muffins and a trip to the thrift and a good PCC White Glove approved bathroom cleaning and a sappy chick flick marathon and a Facebook message conversation with your best friend and tears.  Sooo many tears.  

Just a little side note...
Dear Single Men:  Do not spend hours messaging about how you used to whistle Andy Griffith and why in the world you can't do it now or your aging parents or your work concerns or your wonderful sons.  Do not email a sweet girl about these things because somewhere along the line, she is going to fall for you and your kind, Jesus-loving heart...and then while you are enjoying her wonderful, LOYAL friendship, you are making plans to marry someone else.  Just don't even.  Don't awake her emotions and give her hope...only to leave her sitting in an airport crying over you.  It's unfortunate for you because she will get over you.  But you...you will remain you.  Best of luck!  Sincerely, the girl with curly hair

Today I realized - yes, it took me circa 10ish days to realize this - that those 7 months were not wasted.  I thought they were.  I thought they were as I tried wrapping my brain around the fact that my little email notification will never again be a lime green "W" and that my desk phone when it showed on caller ID it was him that it wouldn't be mostly work-related with a hint of something wonderful.  Yeah.  So I'm leaving all that sooo in the past.  

I learned NEVER ASSUME.  Never.  NEV-ERRRRR!  I will now ask for dating status and then ask for a 4-point definition of what Mr. So-and-so believes "Single" to mean.  

To the single girls out there...
Happy Never Assuming!!!