Sliding Doors Wish

I was asked this week if my fiancé J and I had ever had a Sliding Doors moment.

Well, we did. In 1991 I moved to Glasgow and started a degree in nursing. I did not know at that point that the seeds of becoming chronically ill had started. Ditto not knowing the whole several major relationships, moving of houses, getting married, getting divorced, getting homeless, and getting a lifetimes worth of misguided prayer and help along the way, in amongst a glorious backdrop of Good Friends, and Angels and Fantastic Family that have kept me sane/alive/me. You know the whole bit of sand in your oyster to make nitty gritty painful pearls kind of stuff.

In a basement café that served questionable soup, ham rolls, millionaires shortbread, etc (with the kind of compassion wee freshers really need in big bundles of warm-jumpered kindness) I ate my lunch in the Crypt from day one as a student. I met A there – the start of 7 years of confusion, tempered by his walking my path of descending into I’m Very Sick Now, and worsened by his inability to be honest about our future.

I was regularly dressed in loud shirts and wobbly hats. Type of student ; The Loopy One.

Sitting opposite me, maybe in a corner, maybe next to me – my future second husband. The man who makes me feel there is true friendship in the opposite sex; true kindess and true love. A real good bloke.

So, what you do you see is you take a recently divorced woman, who then met Another who said, 'I really love you, marry me, oh right when I said marry me, what I meant was, er, what?' In other words – a woman on the rebound rebound. Take her with her history of five significant boys and her complicated allergies, and wobbly legs (like the hats, but less furry), and then ….ta da da – let her meet J on the internet and get them engaged in 6 months.

Now, add to this that J is fresh on the dating scene, lives at home with his family, and who is bursting with romance – and muddle it up with a little let's get married now stuff, coz life is short and we’re mad about each other.

An alpha and omega couple; my last boyfriend and his first girlfriend. I adore J, and I know he does back. It just makes me smile that as a fix to a broken heart several times over – well this is the kind of scenario to make the hair go white in terms of sensibility.

We undergo marriage preparation classes this week. The minister burbled around the whole are you a bit crazy/sure situation. J apparently has not much experience – but puts more into a relationship than any man I’ve been with. So, yes we will wait to do the classes before getting our wedding date confirmed by the minister – because something well bad would need to happen to make it not happen.

My wish for you is this.

It comforts me to know, and amuses me, that somewhere in life I had already met someone even briefly, who later on I would love. I had lunch with J without knowing it during the first few weeks of being in Glasgow. I didn't meet him, but I could have.

In J is stored years of goodness. Years of being a loyal brother, son, and church elder has formed a core of love inside that is musical and creative and deep and funny and contented.

Put us together – and the core of me that is ready to keep going, to try new things, is creative, is practical, is affectionate – means that J roots me into the ground, and I lift his head to see the sky.

So my wish is – that the people, the situations, the ‘what ifs’ in your life would re-emerge. That the ‘missed’ opportunities would slide back towards you – and that you would experience the bits of life you need to be reassured that you will become the most you you could become in this lifetime.

And I hope that they arrive in your life – nice and sparkly, and soon.