Second chances

How do you decide to give someone a second chance? Who has shattered your heart? Who has made you question everything in your life?

That man - the one who loved me better than any other before, who loved me good but not enough - has offered himself to me. A different kind of life together. A new prioritization. One that answers the question "Is it enough."

How do you allow someone back in - if you can, in fact? Do you take that gamble - go 'all in'?

At what point do we offer someone a second chance. This man shattered my heart - shrapnel, as Susan Anderson the author says. I'm still figuring out how to re-create my heart into something stronger.

So when I do trust it? be vulnerable to it? open myself to it? take that gamble?

And when do I close off, knowing that no matter how good it sounds or how amazing that love was, that it won't be enough?

I am such the romantic. I want to believe. I want to trust. But I've cried my way through too many Kleenex boxes and toilet paper rolls in my car to walk into anything blindly. No bluffing in the game of love.

So many people would say - Don't trust it. He hurt you. Don't give him another chance. Fold up those cards and walk away before you lose big.

But there's no 'heart' in that path. There's no risk-taking. That's not being open to love. At least in my case. At least in my heart. From all the soul-searching I've done the past six months, I know I want to take risks. Believe in love. Expand my life.

So I asked myself just one question this week - is the payout worth the risk?

It is. Mostly because it was so good before, that if it can be 'enough' now, then I'll have hit the jackpot.


If it doesn't work out, I'll be hurt again. And I'll kick his butt. But I am strong enough to handle it - stronger than last time. More sure of who I am. Though my girlfriends may demand I pay for their high cell phone bills this time!

I didn't get my storybook happy ending last time with him - there's no guarantee I will this time. But I'm just curious enough and just hopeful enough to believe it's worth the gamble.

I'm all in.