How I Followed My Heart

There was no big "to-do", no white dress or tuxedo. There was no romantic music playing in the background or poetry readings to signify the occasion. In fact, it was just me and him, and a judge.

The day was cold, St. Louis cold! That's where I was living, Missouri, when we decided to tie the knot. HE had talked about it for weeks. He had asked me a dozen times to marry him. I blew him off every single time. I didn't know that I'd marry him until the second I said the words. "I Do!"

Up until that point, that very second, all I knew was unrequited love; a longing deep down in my soul to feel true love. Both our lives were full of confusion and yet he knew he wanted to marry me and I knew I didn't want to be unspoken for. Yet the truth is, I wanted to marry him too not just because I didn't want to be alone but because I knew he was a good man. There would be no logic to support my decision to marry him.

I joke that the ink had not quite dried on the final decree of my divorce from my ex-husband and I was marrying again, yet it was the truth. My ex and I signed divorce papers in April. By November of the same year I had already remarried. What would my parents say about the whole thing? What would my family think? Would they think that I had operated as an adulterer for all those years that I was separated from my ex-husband? What a tangled web it was so I decided that our marriage would be a secret. Yet, as Polynesian families go, there are NEVER any secrets!

News spread like wildfire within minutes of our nuptials. I don't even know how my parents found out but my phone began ringing off the hook. I can't begin to imagine what my family thought. Yet the truth is, we met just five days after my ex-husband left me. Spent time for two months. He got shipped off to Fort Riley, Kansas and we had no plans to pursue the romance any further. I moved to St. Louis, feeling so heart-broken in so many ways. He drove out to see me and we felt like we had when we met. Like everything was just so right. We both followed our hearts and we married. We're still married. Sealed together for time and all eternity to love each other in EVERY lifetime!

I don't know if I've ever told the story here; about how we ended up in front of a judge in a small suburb in Illinois; or how I followed my heart, as I always do, and how it has made all the difference today! Babe, thank you for loving me!