From the outside when Greg and I met– introduced by a mutual friend, Jim– it looked like it all came together simply one day. However, I know what a long road it was to get to that September day when Jim texted me and told me he wanted to introduce to me to a mutual friend.
As we have entered February, the time when we are surrounded by red and pink hearts and notions that love only seems to happen around this time, I have recently talked with or seen on Facebook the pain some friends have had on the dating scene.
Having been there– and I’ll spare the gory dating stories– I used those years between my divorce and when I met Greg to work on myself. As my hairdresser friend Amanda said to me, having also been through it ,but before me, “It’s a time to reinvent yourself.”
I used it for that and to make myself better. It wasn’t about what had happened in the past, it was about making sure the future took me where I wanted to go. It wasn’t an easy journey– I felt as if I was trudging through mud for most of it– but it was worth it.
While physically I kept running and walking, giving the dogs walks twice a day, I was going to have to do more than that if I wanted that right person to enter my life.
I somehow found a book by a therapist about how to find your right mate. Honestly, I have no idea the title or who I gave it to because once I was done with it, I passed it along. But there was one major aspect I took from the book and it’s what you see in the photo above: a written intention, a mantra of sorts.
While I didn’t realize it until about ten years ago, I have often called the journals I’ve kept since eighth grade letters to God. Writing has always been a release and I had never thought about it as something more until one day I realized that they had been my prayers all along, even during times in my life when I wasn’t consciously praying to God. That book reaffirmed that by writing my intention down, I could make it happen. It’s as if I released it to the universe when I put it on paper.
It wasn’t just that though– I worked through lots of challenges and made sure I was the best Michelle possible– at least for that time because I believe Greg has made me a better Michelle and then surgery last year changed me again. But at the time I was the best Michelle I could be for Greg to enter my life and for us then to take both our lives separately and together forward, making each other even better than we were when we started the journey together.
There was no question when Greg and I met. We moved forward as if we had met on a long walk along the ocean and kept going. Still walking today. We began to weave our lives together and help each other become better people. It made me realize that after trying to make what had become a bad marriage work and then a relationship following the marriage that I thought I could make work, that it didn’t have to be that way. Life is too short to be more difficult than it is. I found someone who made my life easier, who helps me be the best I can be, who clears the path (as I do the same for him) so that I can be better. My life partner.
Choose your intention. Take care of yourself. Go on with your life. The rest will take care of itself. The right love will find its way to you.