Life takes twists and turns that I have never been able to predict. I have spent the past few months growing into a relationship with a very special person. I don't pretend to explain the directions that life takes me. It seem's like the past three years have been walking in the valley of the shadow of death with no light for the future except for my daughter and the promise that God had given me. Though I had been told over and over again that things would get better, that life would be different but could still be good, I just didn't feel it.

When I met Ray last summer, the timing was definitely off for both of us. Still, there was something about him that intrigued me from the very start. I wasn't looking for love, and honestly was just hoping to have someone help time go by a little more quickly. I didn't like being alone, and yet I didn't really want to be with anyone. Ray and I had a lot of back and forth as friends before finally deciding that we both wanted to see where this would go. Of course, by that time I think we both knew it was already headed somewhere.

Ray and I are alike in some of the most interesting ways, and by interesting, I really mean nerdy. We encourage each other's nerdiness, including his love of wrestling and my stubborn wide-eyed belief in the fantastic - such as unicorns and movies like Avatar. We have an interesting cross-section of similarity in that we like some of the same music, we like to talk about wrestling, we are home bodies, we like "nesting" and we have the same quirky dry sense of humor. We are definitely different in lots of ways that keep things interesting. We debate all kinds of things; he likes to get me going about the White Sox, I like to tease him about his toy collections, and we come at life from very different perspectives. All in all, it has been a really good meshing of personalities and interests. It seems like as soon as we were both ready to see where this went, it just became comfortable.

We are still figuring a lot out but it is as if the future is becoming clearer again. I feel like I am coming around that dark curve and don't know quite what is ahead, but can at least see the edge of the clouds and a clearing in the storm that has been my life.