Bunny Victorious!

HA.  Now this is a funny story.

Seriously, it’s funny.  It’s funny really in that only we don’t get to tell it, really tell it, very often.  But it’s sort of how it happens that makes me appreciate it even more. It starts out kind of sad, but this is only because there’s a universal truth that goes: everything’s okay in the end.  If it’s not okay, it’s not the end yet.

It just wasn’t the end yet.

So once upon not so long ago, I intended to marry a man I’d known for four and a half years.  He was studying to become an architect.  He wound up a commissioned officer in the Marine Corps.  He was a seemingly nice guy, honestly, because you don’t go around planning to marry people who suck.  Except sometimes that happens, and sometimes they wind up being lying, cheating, horrible people, who have been lying to and cheating on you for a lot longer than you’d even suspected.  This happens.  And there’s no point being upset over this, because people who are lying, cheating, horrible people have to make peace in the mirror everyday, whereas you can stumble upon Prince Charming who, of course, doesn’t lie, cheat, or do anything horrible.   But you are usually blindly unaware of all of this at the time.

Anyway, after a slight altercation involving what I viewed unmitigating disrespect towards my mother and then the occurrence of another girl - nay, two - original guy and I spent several months not speaking to each other, me wishing him dead, me asking for my stuff back, him telling me I could pry it from his cold, dead, fingers; you know, the usual break ups stuff.  My father kept calling and telling me doors and windows, purses, blessings.  Only that wasn’t what he was saying, it’s just for months that’s what I thought he was saying.  

So one day this summer, original guy calls out of the blue.  Says all the things one says to win a girl back, even if the girl is me, and her gut is saying to her no, absolutely not, absolutely no.  But it’s hard to see people you’re comfortable with and not fall back into that old routine, even when that old routine is them lying and cheating and being horrible and you not knowing.

And then one day, one day when I was really pretty sure that love had nothing to do with it, one day when I was ready to tell him that, actually, I didn’t know anymore, we went out with some other Marines.  Marines I knew and liked, so I was happy.  Except one that I hadn’t met before.  One I didn’t know at all.

And right away, he swept me off my feet.

It sounds ridiculous, I know, so imagine how badly I felt on the sofa next to original guy and his friends staring at this sweet boy from Georgia and joking about upgrading.  Joking because, really, what could I do? I couldn’t like him, even though I already did.

Like, from right then.  And I couldn’t really hide it.  I talked about him to mama.  To my friends.  To the other guy.  I wanted to know all about him.  Because, right then, it’s already clear there’s the rest of the world, and then there’s him.

But of course, I couldn’t own up to that.  

Except I couldn’t lose track of him either.  He’d be the what if guy.  And I’m not big on what ifs.

So we stayed in touch.

And less than a month later, everything came out with original guy. All the lying, the cheating, everything.  And when things are bad, if you ask me, you show your true colors: who you are when you fight is your most saturated self, and what I already knew, having been there before, was I didn’t want to be with this guy’s most saturated self.  And I didn’t want to fight anymore.

That would have been easy enough on its own, but also, now, I had this glimmer of hope I couldn’t really lie about.  Not to myself, not to anyone.  And so I was angry and upset and betrayed - because after all that investment, all those times when I’d said let’s just end this now and do it respectfully - wouldn’t that have been easier? Couldn’t we have done this the easy way?  I wasn’t surprised, not by any of it.  I was just annoyed I’d been put through it.  I didn’t have to be hurt.

And so I vowed to myself I’d take a few months.  Just for me.  Months all mine, to rebuild a life, to not have to place someone else at the center I’d have to run my world around.  Take a few months for me.

And a few days later, that sweet boy from Georgia walked right back into my life.  And right away, I knew: there was everyone else, and then there was him.  Whatever words I’d used as love before? None of them even count.  It sounds so ridiculous to say that, and whenever anyone’s said it to me, I have laughed it off.  But now I understand.  Now I know.  There’s everyone else, and then there’s him.  

And that’s what makes it the damndest thing.  When that person walks into your life, it’s no longer about needing time off, needing time for yourself.  That person gives you all that already.  They just also give you them, too.  

All along, it was doors and windows, curses, blessings.  All along, it just wasn’t the end yet.  All of it was blessing, all of it this thing I can’t live without.  Because all of it was the thing that lead me straight to him.  

Where you can’t trace God’s finger, trust His heart.