Perseverance – A Love Story

by Chris
(San Antonio, TX)

I met my wife online and after a couple chats and several phone conversations, I had an idea that she was something special. Special enough to warrant a trip. You see, I am from the great state of Texas and she is from the frigid tundra known as Minnesota. So I took a trip up to that cold country and after a week spent with her I knew that she was something special.

In my life I have dated a number of girls. Some average and some amazing. Some beautiful and some with great personalities. Some for good reasons and some for bad. Not that any of that really mattered though, because after a short time all of these relationships would end. I was notorious for the two-week relationship. I had a long history of running away. I had a history of getting scared.

I had reached a point in my life where I had decided that the next truly great girl that came along, I would pursue, truly and completely. I would let the relationship run its course until either she left me, it became abundantly obvious it wasn’t meant to be, or we got married. So here I was, I had found a great girl. The only problem was she lived at the top of the country and I was down at the bottom. So I moved. Out of the state I loved, away from all that I knew and to a place where I only had one friend. I moved because instead of coming up with an excuse as to why it wouldn’t work, I decided to persevere and see what would happen.

So I moved out of my comfort zone. Way out of it. In my past I had ended relationships for many good reasons. Her laugh was kind of annoying. She had pit stains on this one t-shirt she was wearing. When the sunlight hit her face just the right way it kind of made the hair on her upper lip stand out and she looked like she had a mustache. Many many valid reasons. This time though it was different. Instead of jumping at every silly reason I could think of to leave, I stayed. I stayed through the silly stuff and I stayed through the hard stuff and after persevering long after I would have normally quit something magical happened. And it was beautiful. I wasn’t trapped like I thought I would be. I wasn’t stuck with. I didn’t settle for. She was real and she had her flaws, but it was okay. It was better than okay. It was great.

In life we want to so desperately to hold on to things. We are afraid to give up our freedom. We are afraid to give of ourselves. We are afraid to give up future opportunities. We are afraid because we think things are supposed to be easy, and as soon as it turns out to be even a little hard, we think it isn’t the right thing. The path of least resistance isn’t always the right path. The hardest path is sometimes the one we should be going down. During your journey, you must persevere.

My Minnesota bride and I have been married for four years now. We have two beautiful children. Not that long ago I was looking for reasons to break up with whatever girl I was with. Now I wake up every day to a life that is amazing.