Throwback

Today, I talked with a friend online from school...I haven't spoken with him in ages, and as soon as I saw the message from him, my palms got all sweaty, the butterflies went crazy, and all those stupid memories and feelings were there as though it hasn't been 13 years since I saw him.

It was odd...it wasn't as though we ever dated, or there was ever a mutual attraction, but I felt like I was 18 again.

We joked, we talked about our current situations with family and work and what we've been doing for the last decade.

What was odd to me was that feeling that no time whatsoever had passed, and I was this crazy, romantic, totally unrealistic 18 year old who thought that "love conquers all"...

OK - it turns out that love does conquer all - but that's the problem, it conquers all...and real love, unconditional love? It doesn't conquer...it doesn't make you want to be conquered...it just sort oozes into all the spaces in your life and merges, melds, twines around you, and you become love, one with the love that God had planned for you.

While I enjoyed our conversation, and had a blast dredging up goofy memories, and events, I know, as I sit here watching Littlest One kick her feet like a drowning man, and stuff her fist into her mouth, watching me with those big blue eyes, and hearing DG sing her "princess song" to Littlest One, I know that I'm right where I'm supposed to be, and while the man I'm supposed to be with happens to be out of town, I have no regrets about what might have been...for I know that what is is infinitely better than what could be...as my Small Group leader puts it: I have the Filet Mignon dinner, and not the cheeseburger and fries.