03/03 is a difficult day

It was 25 years ago today.

I married my high school crush way back in 1990. We had known each other for five years, not-so-secretly crushing on each other until a fateful day in our friend Chris’ bedroom when we decided we might as well actually date each other.  Just shy of a year later, we got married. We were only 19, but sure that we had  married for time and all eternity. Absolutely sure.
[To keep this sewing related: my mother sewed my wedding dress using three different patterns because I was, uh, finicky.]

Ten years later, we divorced. He went his way. The kids and I went ours.

Then ten more years, 22 years to the day after my wedding, I realized I was truly, madly, deeply in love with my boyfriend. We’d dated off and on, then took a weekend trip to San Francisco and I knew… this was the guy I actually wanted to spend forever with.

Less than a year later, he broke up with me, unable to compromise on parenting differences and clashing personalities.

Now,  two years later,  I’m (still? once more?) single and he’s in love with someone else.

It’s a weird day for me, this third of March. I remember feeling so much love for both these men. The memory of the recent love so close it’s tangible. My heart bursts with gratitude for feeling so much love and passion for another person, for feeling loved in return. And simultaneously it is crushed by loss.

Forgive me while I cry a little today, then smile a little. Forgive me when I get lost in my memories and wishes and broken dreams. I’ll have another 364 to push those thoughts away, but today I let all the feelings in.