Twenty Five Years

Seven days ago, I got a letter than literally changed the course of my life. One minute, I was trundling through life thinking everything was the way it had always been and then BAM!

EVERY

SINGLE

THING

CHANGED

When I say in the blink of an eye, I mean it. The blink of an eye, the ring of a cell phone, the click of a mouse and the speed of a google search.

You see, twenty five years ago, my family moved away from the home I'd lived in my entire life. We moved to a new house in a new city. I never saw my biological father again after that day. I remember things, but now I don't know if I'm remembering them correctly or if I'm remembering then but twisted to the way I was told the events happened.

For two days after the letter arrived, I cried. I cried for almost forty eight straight hours. Almost wrecked my brand new car and probably fed my kids peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

And I spent about thirty six hours on the phone with my sister.

Then three days after my entire life imploded, I said okay. Enough is enough. Time to move on. I reached out to my biological father and stepmother and since then my life has been flooded with family I would have sworn had forgotten me.

To my surprise, even after 25 years, they haven't. I spent so much time thinking of myself that I never stopped to think about how this is affecting my long lost family.

It's almost like my life was ripped out of a novel. Hell, I might just write the damn novel myself. It's so unbelievable that no one would stop to think for a second that it was true.

During this last week, I've found the path that leads back to God. Now, i'm not saying that I went from being an atheist to being a devout religious person. Because that isn't what happened. I felt like I was drowning for almost a week. I couldn't talk to anyone because I had no words...at least none that made sense outside of my mind, so I prayed instead. Not really prayed tho, I guess, it was more like I imagined I was in a church talking to a group of people, telling them my story, telling them everything I couldn't say outloud.

I fell asleep "talking" to these people in my mind and when I woke up the next morning  I had a certain kind of inner peace that I'd never felt before. Now, I'm not saying God healed my pain and that prayer is the answer to everything. But it helped me.