Nicholas and I celebrated twelve years of marriage yesterday. Every year we write in a vow album. The day of our wedding we wrote our vows in a journal and then every year we write a letter to one another on our anniversary. This year for the first time I went back and read all of Nicholas's letters to me over the past 12 years and started thinking about how far we've come and how much we've learned.
Choosing to Love
Recently, I was listening to This American Life. For those of you who don’t listen to This American Life (no judgment but what is WRONG with you!??), every week they choose a theme and put together different stories on that theme. This episode’s theme was break ups. The first story revolved around the particular perfection that are breakup songs. It involved Phil Collins and was really everything that is wonderful about the type of storytelling on This American Life.
Specifically, I learned the story behind one of my favorite songs – breakup or otherwise – of all time Bonnie Raitt’s I Can’t Make You Love Me.
Why I went back to a cheater
My first love cheated on me. Repeatedly.
And I went back to him. Repeatedly.
He was my first real boyfriend and had followed me from high school to college. (Mind you, he did not attend the college - just moved to the same town.) I was head over heels in love with him, as only a teenager can be. I truly believed I was going to marry him. Then, I found a love note in his apartment from a sorority sister — not just any sorority sister but a close friend who had taken me under her wing and showered me with affection.
It is a betrayal that still stings eleven years later.
