Hello there!
I hope you’ve had a fantastic week. Hows that resolution going? I forgot to do one. Guess I’ll have to wait until next year to change myself…;)
Hopefully winter hasn’t been too hard on you. It’s summer time right now here in Peru (I’m here for a little while), and air conditioning isn’t widely available. You’d think someone who spent the last several years in Arizona could handle the heat, but that nighttime humidity really sneaks up on you!
I’ve had some excellent responses for the podcast I’m putting together. In case you missed it, I’m putting together a podcast about “the one that got away,” with each episode a conversation with a different guest. If you’re interested, or want to know more, please email me. I’d love to hear from you! (greysonferguson@gmail.com).
But, as always, I just wanted to say how privileged I am that you’re here, spending your time with me and the things I have to say. It really does mean the world.
Hope you’re doing well!
Your friend,
Greyson
Your Love Cheated. Now What?
“Let me squeeze in there.”
I stand back from the oven, releasing my hold on the steaming pan of white wine and garlic cloves.
My fiancee pulled the oven open for a quick inspection of the bread. The offered aroma spoke to her.
“Just a few more minutes,” she said. “Would you mind starting on the salad? I’ll take over the sauce.”
She didn’t need to ask. I’d already moved on to the tomatoes. After enough shared time in the kitchen our cooking had become synchronized. A dance with no leads, yet both knew what footwork to take. What turns to make. Perfect practice for our first dance as a couple.
With our wedding just two weeks away we already had those steps down.
I tossed the green onions and split Kalamata olives into the bowl already housing chopped lettuce. Feta crumbles soon followed.
Her hips pivoted as I reached over her for the olive oil and white wine vinegar. Essential ingredients for the dressing.
With me out of the way, she slid hands into oven mitts, preparing herself for garlic bread removal, when the table to our side buzzed.
A text.
I set the dressing ingredients down and reached for my phone, bringing the screen to life with a swipe.
The two of us had identical phones. The one I grabbed was not mine.
The text was never meant for me.
“Don’t marry him!” the text read. “Be with me. Like that one magical night.”
My chest, heart, brain, thoughts, it all fell to the floor. It might have made a sound. I don’t know. I couldn’t feel anything but cold. A shiver. A ringing in my ear. Numbness. Nothing.
I looked at her and held out the phone.
“It’s for you.”
Discovery
The brain doesn’t want to process it.
Or maybe with your blood turning cold and draining from your body, it’s simply unable to.
It’s one moment where everything changes. Life changes. Futures change. Love changes.
Few cheat on a whim. They don’t walk astray from meaningful relationships just because. There’s a build-up. There’s time. This kindling.
But at the moment of discovery, you don’t see what went into the destruction. You see the collapsed, smoldering remains of what once stood.
And now you’re left with an uncertain future. The universe just knocked a bucket of paint over the canvas you’d worked so hard on. Can you transform it into something beautiful? Maybe. Can you make the unexpected stain work? Perhaps. Will it ever look like it once did?
No.
It’s Impossible To Run
She closed the door behind her.
I didn’t want her to be there.
I didn’t want to be there.
I’d walked upstairs. Maybe I ran. I don’t remember. I moved from one room to the next. I needed to move. The more I moved the less blood was available for my brain, and the less my brain would think.
I didn’t want my brain to think. I didn’t want it to feel. I didn’t want it to do a lot of things.
She walked into the room. Regret and sadness in her eyes. Regret for what she did to me? Sadness for being caught? It didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered.
She asked for me to sit. To stop pacing. I didn’t want to. I knew it was a bad idea. But I did anyway. What she had to say couldn’t make things worse, could it?
I asked questions I needed to know.
She answered.
I asked questions I didn’t want to know.
She answered.
Everything was true. I looked at her, but all I saw was the smoldering ruins. I couldn’t stay there. I couldn’t stay anywhere. I just needed to be away. To run. Run from the moment. From my thoughts. From reality.
I left her sitting in the middle of the spare bedroom. I opened the back door, and I ran.
You Need To Do The Impossible. Wait
The love you create doesn’t instantly disappear.
Should you uncover a truth about your relationship that fundamentally changes everything, it won’t ever alter the fact that you do truly love that person.
But sometimes that isn’t enough.
Other times that no longer matters.
Love is only part of what makes a relationship. With trust, acceptance, dependence, and so much more, you can make it through anything. You can fortify a relationship to last.
But should the other pillars of your relationship crumble, should your trust in them crack? Should your dependence on them waver? Love alone may not be enough to make it. Save it.
You can choose to forgive, but truthfully that doesn’t matter.
I told myself I could forgive my fiance. That we could move on. Workaround what happened. Make things better. I convinced myself it could be true.
Funny how convincing and lying are often one and the same.
I lied to myself because I didn’t want to feel empty. I wanted to stop the bleeding. To move forward. To achieve all the goals and dreams I had in my mind. I didn’t want it all to disappear into dust. The same way the dreams of all other failed relationships had.
Two weeks to the wedding, I didn’t have the time to wait. I had to continue, or I had to end it.
Treading water only works so long in a draining pool.
Waiting is the hardest part. You're broken, beaten, defeated. You want to scream and cry and run and die. No other feeling is like that of a shattered heart. So you wouldn’t be wrong to want it to stop. To make a snap decision.
You might convince yourself things can get better.
You might lie to yourself as well.
It’s why, in the end, you simply have to be strong. You still love them. Is that enough?
To discover the answer, you need to do the impossible.
Wait and see.