Again

by J.L. Seegars

used to think she was a blessing—a gift from God to an undeserving man—but I was wrong. She isn’t a blessing, some small thing held up to prove the existence of a higher power and keep you beholden to it. She is the reason blessings exist. They are born in her eyes and fueled by the blood in her veins. They are forged in her name and written by her hand. She is my religion. Her body is my place of worship, and I will spend the rest of my life at her altar.

With high hopes sent to the heavens only to come crashing down on our heads. With the weight of the failures, she insisted on owning, pushing her further into despair and self-loathing until it was nearly impossible for her to look at herself in the mirror. And I just wanted it to stop. I just wanted her to stop tearing herself apart over something so far out of our control. She took it to mean that I wanted something different altogether. That I’d changed my mind about everything when all I’d done was decide that I wasn’t prepared to sacrifice her for the sake of having children that shared our DNA.

We’ll have the rest of our lives to work on us, to heal what’s been broken, to grow into the people we were always meant to be together. We’re not going to leave here fixed, but I do hope we’ll leave here committed to being the best version of us that we can be.”

fortune favors the bold,