I walk through the grocery store. I grab a few things and I make my way to the express lane.

My friend “Munkee” stands in line before me.

“So, how are things going for you Colleen?” he asks.

“You know what?” I say. “I’m good. Talking less and smiling more!”

“Sounds like a bumper sticker,” he says with a laugh.

“Sounds like a column,” I smile and respond.

The frustration and pain are subsiding. Joy is filling in the holes they leave behind.

I am finding grace. The kind that allows us to accept we don’t always get what we want in life. And that despite our best intentions and plans we can somehow painfully duplicate our past.

I make my way home. I sit at the computer. I pin a motivational quote.

The positive side of me is sneaking back in. The girl who was rarely without a smile.

The girl who saw the world as the cup half full.

I think back to my friend “Munkee.”

I no longer look at him and wish and wonder why I can’t be one of them any more. One of the happily marrieds. One of the families.

Now I am just content to know that men like him exist. The kind of men who stay. So unlike the two that broke my heart generations apart.

I am healing and coining bumper stickers.

“Talking less and smiling more.”

(My soon to be ordered bumper sticker on Zazzle)

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