Long time, no type...

As I logged on this evening, I set about refamiliarizing myself with my MacBook. I'm starting a class at Auburn in a week and making sure I can use the technology I'm taking with me will be paramount to my success. After a few tinkerings, I looked up the blog of an old professor and realized in the process that it had been a while since I put my thoughts to written (or in this case, typed) word.  Nearly 5 years, in fact. It's not like anyone reads this, but I think it's important that I document this point in my life.

I'm 33, a survivor of every form of abuse and a veteran. I've been happily married for almost 6 1/2 years, to a man I've loved for almost 16. I am 4 1/2 years into a career in federal law enforcement. I own a house in a town that I never planned on staying in, with my sweet husband and a grumpy old dog. And I am going through infertility treatments. Each of those bullet points could be the subject of a long, meandering post. But, as I was reminded earlier, these are but brief movements in the greater symphony that is my life as a whole.

Music has a funny way of bringing us back to specific moments and seasons in our lives. I recently found an old hard drive that I'd backed up my previous laptop on, it contained a ton of old photos, faces I hadn't seen since Iraq (I got home 10 years ago in August). And music that I hadn't heard in the same amount of years. One of those songs was an old Garth Brooks song that I'm sure I've heard in the intervening years, but it struck a chord with me that day. For those of you who may ever read this and not be fans of old country music, "Unanswered Prayers" contains the line, "...If He'd only grant me this wish I wished back then, I'd never ask for anything again..." As I was in my car, commuting to work in Pensacola, I immediately flashed back to being 21, heartbroken and scared and genuinely afraid I was completely unlovable. My abused upbringing taught me that unless you were perfect, you were not worthy of love. Unconditional love was a foreign concept, reserved only for movies and fiction books. In that season, I bargained with the Almighty. If He could just see to it that Brian and I survived, I'd never ask for anything again. I got my wish. It took us 9 1/2 years to get married, but I have more than I ever dreamed I was worthy of. 

So, future self, when you read this again some day... Remember, if you don't have a baby, it's ok. If you don't get the Bureau to pay for law school, it's ok. And if you live a quiet, ordinary life, it's ok. Because you already got your wish. And it turned out better than you imagined back then.