Although it was April in Paris, it felt more like November. The sky was gray and the mist was heavy, leaving a chill in the air that had us reluctantly sharing an umbrella.
Looking back now, I should have seen the storm coming, but over a lifetime, I had learned how to ignore the reality of what I didn’t want to see.
We had come so far, and now the only thing that stood in our way was a long shuffling line, weaving slowly back and forth under the towering monument—hundreds of feet above—calling us up to what would eventually become the beginning of the end.
I was finally going to be engaged to the man I loved, after waiting eight long years, and through more ups and downs than I was willing to admit to anyone.
Instead, I’d remind myself that relationships took work, compromise, and were never perfect—and force myself to be grateful for all we shared—our daughters, our families, much less the homes we got to travel between.. And then there was the three-carat diamond ring we had spent the holiday picking out together just a few months earlier.
In the back of my mind, I tried to forget that ten years prior, there’d been another man, another engagement, and another diamond—but no wedding. A week before the big day, I woke up from a deep sleep, panic-stricken—not thinking of the 200 guests, my daughter who was flying in from college, much less my family, traveling in from various states and countries to celebrate the big occasion.
Cold feet had me pacing the wooden floors, back and forth, and back again, trying to figure out the best way to jump off this fast-moving train headed in the wrong direction—until I just leapt—daring the darkness and the consequences that I couldn’t see.
Whatever I would face would at least break the fall, which was better than agreeing to a life that I wasn’t sold on.
In retrospect, I recognized a part of myself that wanted much more, a life that I hadn’t realized yet and never would, if I walked down the aisle with this man.
And here I was again. A different man, but that same knowing.
This chapter sat quietly in a file on my laptop for nearly a decade before I did anything with it.
It first emerged while journaling one morning, just weeks after returning home from recovery—still learning how to sit with myself, how to listen.
I hadn’t set out to write anything special. I simply sat down and started.
And somehow, my writing began telling me a story of the day we got engaged.
The sky. The chill. The irony of the storm.
It was like I’d stepped back in time and was being shown the details I’d missed.
Each line held grace, and its beauty was undeniable.
That’s why I captured it—wanting to know more, but recognizing it left as quickly as it came.
And all I could do was file it away, so I’d always know where to find it.
I returned to it often, hoping to pick up where we’d left off.
But the story had already told me what it came to say.
And then it was still.
Until 2022.
That was the year my business completely stalled. I had no clients, no income.
But I did have the gift of time—time to rethink what I was doing.
And the chance to see that I’d been focused on the wrong things—trying to be everything a coach should be on social media, instead of grounding myself in the reason I started this work in the first place.
That’s when I returned to my 2015 folder and opened the document titled PARIS—making it Chapter One.
Buried inside it was the why behind everything I wasn’t doing. The real reason my business was stalling. And finally—I got it.
That’s when the memories returned—along with the slow process of chiseling away, finding the words that captured moments in time across an eight-year romance that ended in Paris.
Sometimes, it takes a while for clarity to catch up with us.
And when it does, doors open.
Thank you for being part of this journey.
Next week’s chapter: Weaving the Web—The Setup Disguised as a Dream
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