New Beginnings

My name is Carlie.  I'm not sure how to begin my story, but lately life has been beautifully unpredictable, and I can't let it slip by undocumented.

For the past four years, I lived out the greatest love story I had ever known.  When I was nineteen I married my high school sweetheart, and moved to Germany with him for twenty-seven months.  He was a soldier, and moving away was easy for me, because home was where he was.  We explored castles and roamed the Bavarian Alps.  It felt like a fairy tale, but we missed home.  Then, when we finally came back to the states and my world was on the brink of perfection, my sweet, loving husband left me.  He told me he wanted a divorce while sitting in my car in a WalMart parking lot.  There was no warning and no explanation.  It's been nine weeks.  I still don't understand how he could give up something so precious so easily, and yet I've stopped looking for answers.  Understanding what happened wouldn't change it.  I won't waste even one more second feeling lost or hurt, because for four years I was happy.  I had adventures.  I did nothing I regret.


Anyway, this story is not about him, or my past, or how heart ache feels...  Or maybe it is, a little bit.  But mostly, this story is about love.  Love in all its forms.  And laughter.  And healing.  And how life is a puzzle with missing pieces.  And how, sometimes, that's okay.

Since things fell apart I've been living in an old, comfortable duplex at 801 Stanford Lane with the most amazing three friends anyone could ask for.  Rylie and Tom had been renting one half of the duplex for months.  When their Arab neighbors moved back to the middle east last month, I made the incredibly impulsive decision to lease the other half with Tom's friend Bryan, who I only met two months ago when I moved home from Europe.  Thankfully, we get along perfectly.

The four of us at the duplex and our friend Leanne make up the sort of gang you only find on television shows.  We cook brunch together on weekends, take spontaneous road trips, and joke about becoming "regulars" at a local bar and grill.  We speak in a language made of inside jokes and puns, and we take care of each other.  We're a family.  We're all going through our own sort of transition right now.  It's good that we have each other to lean on.

Despite everything that's happened, and all I've lost, I can honestly say that I am happier here with these people than I have ever been.  Being surrounded by people who genuinely like and appreciate me is a feeling I don't take for granted.  And the adventures the five of us have?  They are outrageous enough to warrant a movie deal.  Since I have no connections in Hollywood, I found my way here, to the blogosphere.  And with the comfort of a good alias, this will be where I share our stories with the world.