You can be my hero

Do you ever get the sense that if things did not play out to the exactitude that they did, that nothing in your current life would be at all the same?  That every moment of pain and sadness has a perfect reason that only plays out in the future?  My life has many of those twists and turns of fate, where if things had gone a different way, I don't know that I would be in this place right now, with a cat sitting at the window, my husband sitting next to me, and a Korean drama on TV.  Today's Blogtember challenge was to write about one of those turns.

It was May 2009, and I had been dating Ryan for about 6 months.  We were contemplating moving in together at the end of July or August, and so we were looking for a place to live down in the Boulder area where I was living at the time.  I had scheduled several apartment showings for us that day.  I met Ryan at his place so we could go look at the places.  Suddenly, we were fighting.  I couldn't tell you what it was about, just that we were fighting again.  We fought a lot, and not in a good, healthy way.  Our fights crossed line after line after line.  Screaming, name calling, threatening break-ups, barricading doors, and physical restraint were all parts of our typical fights.  Each of us had our faults, and each of us did things that we shouldn't.  But that day, I just couldn't do it anymore.  I couldn't handle feeling that way, being trapped, having to physically push my way out of a situation that got too intense.  And after 2 hours of the most intense arguing of my life, it was done.  Over.  I was able to walk away from the single most destructive relationship of my life.  I felt so broken, so not myself anymore.  I felt lost.  I called my mom and met her at Costco, where I cried for about an hour as we walked down the aisles.  Then I went home with her and cried some more.  I don't know that I can explain or understand just what it was that I was crying over, just that I felt like I was failing miserably at everything I touched.
As a result of that break-up, I started spending more time with some of my work friends.  One of those friends invited me to go up to Fort Collins with her a couple of weeks later.  That night, I met Brad.  Brad and I hit it off right away, and just like that, I was dating again.  I started spending more and more time in Fort Collins, and quickly discovered a love for this city that I previously knew little to nothing about.  Brad encouraged me to consider finding a job and place to live in Fort Collins.  I absolutely agreed.  I was ready for a change, for a fresh start after my last relationship, and moving sounded like a great way to do just that.  But a rebound is a rebound, and only weeks after finding a new job, Brad and I decided to part ways.

It didn't matter though, because a week or so after that, a boy in the warehouse caught my eye.  We started flirting... and then on November 1, 2009, 6 short months after the hardest day of my life to date, I had dinner at Chipotle for the first time with my future husband.  If I would have known back that fateful day in May how my life would turn out, I doubt that I would have cried nearly so hard.  What seemed at the time to be my greatest failure quickly became the doorway that has led to my greatest achievement... marrying a wonderful man who always loves and supports me.  I am so thankful that this great guy who reminded me of Clark Kent when I first met him, chose to be my hero.