Luke was gone. I couldn’t decide if I’d won or lost the fight. When he first approached me about moving to Nashville he hadn’t presented it as an option but a foregone conclusion that I would uproot and move with him. My stubborn independent side reacted by drawing a line in the sand. Why should I give up my home, my job, my life so that he could chase his dream? What about my dreams? It never occurred to me that we could share dreams. For weeks we talked in circles, neither willing to budge an inch. Then he gave up. “I love you Kara, but I can’t make you go with me. And I can’t stay here.” Just like that, our life together ended. Months later and I felt like I was going through the five stages of grief, but acceptance was so far out of sight I was hopeless. As it was, I bounced around between anger, bargaining and depression like a ping pong ball on a daily basis.

I made my way slowly up the walkway, recalling that night that seemed like a million years ago when we had started to unravel. I was in no rush to get inside the house. That’s what it was now, a house not a home. A place to lay my head and shed my tears in privacy. Turning the doorknob, I dropped my purse and satchel on the floor and wandered into the kitchen for a glass of wine. I was annoyed when my cell phone rang, I wasn’t expecting anyone to call me. And I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone. I considered letting it go to voicemail but a nagging feeling drove me to the front door where my purse still sat on the floor. I dug into the depths of the satchel and reached the phone just in time to see the missed call. The ID read: Luke. My heart began to race and I thought of the possibilities that the call held. New beginnings, shared dreams, a life together. Maybe I wouldn’t need that last stage – acceptance.