A LOVE STORY | THE NARRATIVE ARC

You Can’t Fight a Tidal Wave

Love can arrive at the most inopportune, inconvenient, and unexpected time

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

Love can arrive at the most inopportune, inconvenient, and unexpected time. The great love of my life happened that way. Not sought out. Not planned. Not hunted for. Love organic, with no notice or forethought.

But before that happened, I did have another love. A love that I wanted to make work. A love I spent time thinking about, planning, and looking for. My first marriage to my wife.

A “straight” marriage, it would be called.

I met her when I went out of state from the Midwest to the Redwood Forest of Giant Sequoias in Sequoia National Park. I still remember the first time I saw her. My immediate thought was, “That girl has the most beautiful smile I have ever seen!” She was bubbly, fun, engaging, and pretty. Long, beautiful hair of the 70’s style. I was most definitely attracted! You can’t fight a tidal wave.

Photo property of Author — When we were young.

However, the undertow of my life was my sexual identity. My identity and innocence had been hijacked by terrible…