My first true love

I was reunited this week with my first true love.

We have shared a true and deep romance for many many years, my first true love and I.

Through my growing up years, and those awkward teen moments when I didn't know what to do with my emotions, my first true love taught me so much.

In college, when others broke my heart, I could always count on my first love to comfort me. Support me. Hide me at moments. Make me break out of my shell at others.

When my belly was huge with child and I could barely waddle, my first true love could still make me feel beautiful, and free, and graceful.

During Andy's deployments, when the bed was so empty and I felt so alone, my first true love distracted me, numbed the pain, and eventually lulled me to sleep.

This year, hitting that dreaded 30, my first true love as been faithful to keep me feeling young when I request it, while gently reminding me that I am no longer a youth.

But when Andy got home from his last deployment I dropped my first true love cold turkey.

I quit reading!

Other then the words of my Savior (who honestly is my REAL first true love...) and my "Streams in the Desert" I have had...

NO BOOKS!

No novels, no histories, no political discussions. I barely even skimmed Parent's magazine or the newspaper. In the two months he has been home I had read practically nothing.

Until this week.

This week I finished the political book Ellen had given me, "Cheaper by the Dozen", which I started weeks ago, an entire Family Fun magazine and four little romance novels. Plus I read the first four chapters of "The Hobbit" out loud to Canaan, and several chapters of a kids novel set during the revolutionary war.

I suppose it helps that I spent three hours in the waiting room on Friday, during which time there was nothing to do but read. Still, I am glad to know that my first love has returned, and is not holding a grudge.

Andy always takes priority over books, but now that we have gotten back into the swing of normal life... well, he doesn't need quite as much attention any more.

It all started because I learned to read quite fluidly by five. I don't think I have "come up for air" much since then. When I got in trouble as a child, rather then being sent to my room, or getting a spanking, I had my book taken away as a punishment. Grounded from books... torture. My Freshman and Sophmore years of highschool my goal was to read 180 book over the course of the school year. One for every school day. I read the Anne of Green Gable Series, everything Janette Oke wrote, Anne Frank's Diary. Most of the Bronte and Austen books.

As I have ages, my tastes have matured - I still love romance and history best, but mysteries, and a bit of political intrigue make me happy too. Biographies. Cookbooks. Some amazing devotional studies. Pretty much, if it has words, I like to read it...

These last two months of not reading, or really even desiring to read, have felt odd. But now my passion has returned. My world is correctly on it's axis, once again.

Oh, my love, I have missed you!