Serendipity

I have been thinking about a lot of things over the last 4 - 5 months. Not to the point of obsessing, just trying to puzzle out some things we deal with in life. One of the things that I've learned over the years is that we can spend a long time with someone...yet never really 'know' them. Or they 'knowing' you. I have to wonder how that can be when this person started and for the most part remained my best friend, yet we really didn't know each other. This happened many times. Some place along the line we stopped learning and wanting to learn about each other. Why? Was it after the first couple of hurts...where words were said that hurt feelings or actions that betrayed feelings? I don't know...not for sure. I know for me, my feelings are easily hurt, but it's even worse when words that were hurled at me were said with menace. I actually keep a tally mentally in my head of how many times I am made to cry, or feel belittled. And yes...I di...

Four years and 8 months ago, I moved from my brother's home into my own apartment with my then boyfriend. It was great! We had no kids, we could come and go as we pleased, and do as we pleased. Life was good. Until I learned different things about this man who I had gone to school with back in junior high and senior high. Red flags popped up here and there, but I thought we were still in the getting-to-know-you faze.  Time passed. I learned that this man had a temper, a rotten attitude and a foul mouth that as time passed only got worse. And worse. And every time we argued, it was MY fault. Something I did...or did not do...made him mad. VERY mad.  I would cry. A lot. He would taunt me, calling me a "baby". Name calling would bring the tears and he'd say "they are only words". But I have to tell you that in all my years on this planet, I never cried as much as I did with him. Words hurt. They aren't the minute things we were taught in scho...