I remember when you came into my life. It wasn’t the first time I had met you, or seen you, it wasn’t even the first time I gave you my number. But this time it was different. It was my second time out since I had broken away from an abusive relationship. I was petrified to even be out let alone have fun. I was new and I was broken. But the stars aligned that night and somehow we wound up at the same place at the same time. Friends of yours were trying to hook you up with my best friend, who was out with me and friends of ours. Somehow we wound up standing at the corner of a very crowded bar and we were kissing like we were the only ones in that place.

I remember falling in love with you. It was easy. It happened fast. You were unlike any man I had ever met, and that was a good thing. I can remember the first night you came to pick me up. My mom poured me a shot and said “please have fun.” I took the shot, and you came to pick me up 5 minutes later. I remember where we went and that my ex was blowing my phone up but somehow the anxiety subsided when I was around you. I remember the first time you met my entire family, and they loved you. I remember thinking that night, at my aunt’s fundraiser, that you were a real life angel, sent to save me.

I remember everyone telling us to take it slow. I remember loving to hear what your mom said about me. I remember loving the way you pulled me into your lap in front of anyone, you didn’t care, you wanted the world to know you loved me, that I was your girl.

I remember breaking up. We had gone too fast and we hadn’t healed from the past we had endured. We didn’t listen to our mothers, or our uncles or your pop. We loved each other and we went full steam ahead, until the train went off the tracks a few times and it was necessary for us to part ways.

We found our way back to each other less than a year later. It was apologies and acceptance again into both our families. It was a promise to treat this relationship like it was a brand new one. We talked much less about our exes, and we still don’t really go there. We loved more. We were honest and sometimes that hurt. We moved in together, fell in love over and over, got engaged, and then, married.

It wasn’t soon after we found out that we were pregnant. I remember never loving you more. I remember wanting to spend every waking moment with you and feeling like life was so good I was scared something bad was always on the verge. But nothing bad ever happened. We welcomed our first baby. He made us parents and we were figuring it out together. It was late nights on google and early mornings getting peed on, sleeping in shifts and then somewhere along the way it became a little easier.

Life for you was never a shiny lucky penny heads up. But you had a lot of love in your heart, and you had braveness in your heart, and the fight in you STILL is as loyal as it gets. Now I’m beginning to realize, what it’s like when life isn’t a shiny lucky penny. Where you were raised kind of operating on survival mode, I always had a rather cushy life. Now we witness our life together unfolding. You do better than me with obstacles, you’re a survivor. Your parents raised you, loved you, helped you, pushed you, shaped you, and wanted you to have dreams and hopes and wanted you to always know that family comes first. Now that I’m in a hard season of my life, I’m realizing I’m lacking some tools and I rely on you and only you to help me figure it all out.

I know the immense pressure you’re under. I know it because I can feel it. I’m sorry my father never taught me how to be better at handling money and soon after my beloved mother died, he threw me away. Me, Allie and Chris. I’m sorry that he threw you away and our kids too. I’m sorry this even burdens your big heart, you’re the last one to deserve it. I remember asking you to love me a little more these last two years. You’ve spread yourself so thin and so wide and have provided love and SO MUCH MORE to me and to Allie it’s supernatural what you do for us.

So I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I wasn’t raised to know what’s really important. I know loyalty and love and I know happiness and I never went without, but right now I am trying to fix myself so you don’t fall out of love with me and the life we built over the last 9 years.

I have daddy issues. And they are rearing their ugly head. My dad used to call me fat, my entire childhood. And he would yell like a maniac. He would hit my brother and just the abuse sometimes, and still, it’s disturbing. He’d bounce up and down when he got really mad. He was always dramatic and only after he reached this scary breaking point did he ever feel sorry. And really it was always self pity.

I thank you for rarely breaking. I’m sorry that I am the reason you break. I thank you for being strong and steady. I’m happy you can find a way to love me even when I can’t picture what Love is anymore. They don’t tell you how ugly death is, and all the wicked tricks it plays on you long after you witness someone’s soul leave their body. They don’t explain to you that who you are as a child shapes your entire adult life. They don’t tell you how disturbing life on earth can be. But what they don’t KNOW is. I still have a real life angel. And it’s you. It’s you and it’s Maverick and it’s Ace, my brother my sister, your entire family who surrounds me with love.

I don’t want to be vicious. Or vulgar. I want to be soft and hard in all the right ways. I want to be loved but I want to love you more. And provide you with a soft place to land on your hardest days.

I am sorry. I’m sorry that the pain in my heart has ripped through our life together like a tornado while we’re trying to build it from the ground up. Please have faith in me, and be strong for me a little while longer while I begin, just begin, to pick up all the shattered pieces of my heart. Please have patience with me while I find the girl you married. Please forgive me for being angry and taking it all out on you. I have a lot of work to do on myself and clearly that’s why I stay busy picking you apart. I don’t like who I am right now and if for no one else, I want to become better for you, to you, and for our sweet angel babies. You and them are why my heart has stayed beating these last two years. I’d be dead without you three.