PRESENT DAY SNIPPET: THE BEST DECISION I EVER MADE (EIGHT YEARS AGO)
From heartbreak to healing – and an exciting opportunity
Eight years ago today, I went on a date with a man who I thought would be the ultimate ego boost. I was just shy of thirty. He was thirty-seven but looked practically twenty-seven. He was tall, handsome, muscular, and absolutely gorgeous. Thinking I could go back to my early twenties and have a shag without attachment, I chose this man who had a terribly written dating profile and a profile picture of his abs, breaking all my usual rules outside of the aesthetic ones.
Two weeks prior (I know, I know – serial dater), I’d moved to England after my first husband had ended our short-lived three-year marriage by text: “I love you but we’re not right for each other” and “You’re not the kind of wife I want.” It’s a long story that I’ll delve into another time.
The two-minute version
I was left without money (didn’t go for the divorce lawyer because I had no money and no power – also more later) living back with my Father in the West Yorkshire town of Todmorden and utterly hopeless, heartbroken, and devastated.
I wanted a fresh start in a place with happy memories. I didn’t want to move back to Florida (where my Mum and baby sister lived) or Georgia (where many of my friends lived), so I thought Todmorden was a new start; I could be with my Dad, Grammy, Grandad and his wife, my niece, my older sister, my cousins, my cousins's children and so on. I had a network already.
I hadn’t seen the end coming and I had wanted to be married for life and here the rug had been pulled from under the trajectory I thought my life would take.
But I went on a date with this man who didn’t behave like anyone I’d ever dated before. He was funny, a little awkward at times, brutally honest to the point I’d sometimes laugh and shake my head, he had no filter, he was utterly himself. And that was charming. As someone finding myself again outside of a marriage, he was exactly what I needed to heal.
I didn’t know on that first date or even our second date – a charming walk where he pulled children’s snacks from his pockets and then planned prosecco and strawberries and a homemade tea of Yorkshire hot pot complete with bread, butter, and peas – that this man would be the one I’d fall for, a second chance at love. That he’d become my second husband.
I’m lucky he chose me, that we found each other, and that I have the kind of partnership that I could only ever have dreamed of. It’s like the cliche of marrying your best friend, of having someone to do life with. I have a man that every day I love, every day makes me laugh, every day I still fancy – all this time later, my longest-lasting relationship.
Our love is deeper and better than I could ever have imagined and everything we have built from the rock bottom of my life until now has been on our terms, together.
To my second and forever husband, Michael, you’ll always be my everything.
Happy first-date-aversary!
(Third – I think – wedding anniversary to come in September. Don’t worry, thanks to COVID-19 changing our wedding date four times neither of us can fully remember the date but that doesn’t even matter.)
In other exciting news…
I’m going to a writer’s retreat for a week, down the road in nearby Hebden Bridge.
If signs from the universe are your thing, I took it as mine that on Thursday last week
of talked about ‘The Magic of Committing to your Writing’ and how when she was a mere aspiring novelist, she’d done a writing retreat in Heptonstall at Lumb Bank, which was the home of poet laureate Ted Hughes (aka the husband of Sylvia Plath).
She’s since published three novels and runs a successful coaching business but she said it all started at her retreat. But this time, she was having a sort of ‘pinch me’ moment because she’d been invited to teach there instead. Of course, she articulated this all much more beautifully than I have done in my clumsy retelling, but she also said, ‘there are spaces left.’
(Side note: I discovered Katherine’s publication when
at posted a sort of ‘where is everyone from’ kind of post and I said I was in West Yorkshire and a couple of other people replied to my comment saying they were too. Katherine said she was in nearby Heptonstall and I subscribed to her publication and became a founding member because she had this amazing deal where you subscribe and then do a coaching session included – which I hope to take up later in the year.)As you do, I Googled the retreat and found the course just to see what it was about and how expensive it was. It happened to be on the very days off I’d booked from work the week before last. (Am I channelling my inner,
?)For those who know Michael and I, we have to book our annual leave a year in advance because The Royal Mail (i.e. where my husband works) does its annual leave rota way in advance to plan for the Christmas rush so that leaves last-minute things not very flexible and I always try to get the days off that Micahel has booked.
Long story short, Michael had the opportunity to book extra annual leave days and he chose this week in July (15th-19th) because we had already booked the previous Friday (12th) to welcome Orienna, Cary, and Evelyn (we can’t wait for their visit). O and C are friends from my Germany days with my first husband but O met Michael around five years ago. O and C now have a beautiful two-year-old daughter who we have yet to meet.
I asked Michael if he considered it a sign, too, does this mean the universe is landing this opportunity in my lap and what do you think about me going? I acknowledged this would mean sacrificing our time together. As usual, Michael was majorly supportive and said he would never be able to provide writing feedback to me that a group can and he thought I should go. And just like that, I booked the course.
In two weeks, I’m going on my first writer’s retreat, which is fully vegetarian (Michael has joked that I may need to smuggle in snacks)!
After years of ‘wanting’ to be a writer and being too afraid that I’d fall short and never write anything decent, I’ve already taken steps to write over 40k words of a 50k-word romance novel so far (or in the last month) with the hopes of submitting it to the Harlequin open submission and in years to come, with the hopes of writing a more ‘traditionally published’ rom-com – because you can’t learn to write a novel without trying to write a novel – and I’ve been submitting all sorts this year such as a TV pilot and a piece for the Modern Love column (fingers crossed), which I’ll hear about at the end of the year.
I believe this retreat will be super inspiring, if nothing else, not only to give me the space to write but also to be inspired by other writers, people who are ‘real’ writers.
And since I only have two weeks to read at least one book from each of the course tutors, I’ve started Katherine’s The Coffin Path.
I don’t normally read historical fiction or ‘horror’ genres but it’s absolutely brilliant so far and I’m sucked right in. The writing is beautiful. I truly feel I’m in the bleak northern landscapes of the Moors in the 1600s with a shepherdess from the manor house down the path! In fact, I’m so sucked in that I started reading it on Saturday and I expect I’ll finish by today or tomorrow and the book is quite long. It has the elements of a mystery and I love mystery novels. Plus, even though the ‘Tudor’ period was more my Dad’s thing and my older sister’s thing (I’ll get her a copy), I’m enjoying it immensely.
I’m super excited for the second half of this year and to see what unfolds! Stay tuned!
P.S. Check out
’s piece on an ‘imperfect love story’ that I relate to so much because mine and Michael’s story wasn’t the usual ‘perfect’ beginning.
P.P.S. Doesn’t this brilliant
piece just remind you of that time I tried to undo a breakup with an email? (Obviously, there’s more to it than that but I definitely resonated with the piece.)
P.P.P.S. I will write about how Michael and I met down the line! And how my marriage to my first husband ended (and also how we met and fell in love and the realisations I came to about how sometimes we make small cuts into people without realising it). These stories will all be part of the chapters in Why We Met, of course. I feel that every story in my journey and all the people I loved and lusted after have helped me come to the place I’m in now – and I’m ever so thankful.
**So after discussing it with my older sister and talking about references to Cromwell in The Coffin Path, I've concluded that the book is not, in fact, set during the 'Tudor period' and is in the 'restoration' around 1660. I see 1600 and think 'Tudor' (which was apparently 1485-1603) and Dr K who taught my undergrad 'restoration to 18th century literature' course would think I learned nothing in there. (I did learn loads hah but clearly forgot all the dates.)
Have fun writing! (yes, bring snacks!!)