Stranger than Fiction

Love is a strange and mysterious thing. Never text book and always a little overwhelming to me.....always stranger than fiction.

My first true love....I met in a place far, far away. In a place that was so spellbinding and so romantic that a movie about soulmates was made there. Needless to say that when I watched that movie years after...I cried...I longed...I missed him....I began my search for him. We met on a mountainside. He was heading east and I was heading west. Our eyes locked for a brief moment...a smile...and of course I blushed. And we walked away.

Just another cute guy.

Not.

Later that evening at the lodge, my sister and I were warming ourselves by the fire in the main hall. She nudge me with her elbow and whispered in my ear, "Guess what I found?" She pointed up to what I thought was the top of the atrium, only to see "him" smiling down on me with those army shorts and spiked hair. I blushed and smiled back. The moment was caught...literally on film. Just then my father had snapped a picture of my sister laughing and me...caught in a moment of love at first site. So special, I kept and still have it on FB.

And of course we met.

How?

After boughts of late nite flirting of morris code on the bedroom wall (yes, just happens that he was staying in the next suite over in the old lodge...). Me with my late night reading overlooking the lake and mountain...falling asleep while I did so as he aproached. Somethings never change. We talked so late into the night. We promised to stay in touch after that vacation.

Oh! the promises of youth are fleeting...but this wasn't the case.

We did... For years.

The letters....the travels to visit each other...the long calls late into the night... Then we grew up.

And somethings change. And lies break hearts. No, he did not lie to me. His friend did...and I believed.

And I ran all the way back home.

And hid away for a year and a day with a broken heart.

Two decades later I watched that movie and cried. I rushed to my PC and began to search like a silly girl. But I found, him.

The lies couldn't be true, I told myself as I wrote the email. One, Two, Three...Hold my breathe....Hit the send button.

No they weren't. He had searched for me over the years and had no idea what had transpired. I told him...and it didn't seem to surprise him how mean his friend had been.

Before we hung up the phone that night he promised to remain my friend always and forever. And I promised that as well. That is one of the best gifts that fate has dealt me. I have been blessed to have this wonderful, sweet and awesome person in my life again - He was always an inspiration to me...to be my best.

Proof that real friendship never fades.