Michelle I. Part 2

Dear Shell,
  Although I've already written to you when you were 17, in the attempt to have you avoid a lifetime of pain and betrayal, knowing you as I do, you didn't listen. So I again writing you at 27 for there are two periods in your life where you made fatally wrong mistakes that I have always wished I could time travel and make right the wrongs.
  During this time, you finally had the courage to separate from Mike and you and the kids were living in a beautiful, big country home. At first, it was definitely rough. Emotions were high and courage was low. But you found strength, after going back to church, to embrace these changes and flourish. What was once a lonely, desperate, all hope lost living woman, was a confident thriving always joyful woman. Not someones wife. I had a name. I had an identity. Going back to the church I was married in and had had my children dedicated in was at first humiliating and painful. But everyone welcomed me and the kids and before long I was a sunday school teacher, I was a member of the ladies auxiliary and I was HAPPY! For the first time, since I made the fatal error of marrying mike, (I was never in love with him and never fell in love with him....ever). One day, while working in the flower beds I heard a familiar voice calling my name. Donald Ings. My heart was ready to jump out of my chest and I felt like I was gonna faint. I still loved him so much. But he was married, although I didn't know at the time that he too had married out of desperation, not love, because his heart was broken that I was no longer available.
  So, just when you and the kids were really starting to be happy, enjoy life and feel the weight of years spent with Mike and all that.......crap started to lift, Mike came to you and asked for a reconciliation. And I can still remember a voice in your head screaming NO NO NO!!!!!!!!!! DO NOT TAKE HIM BACK! STAY ON THIS COURSE!!!!!!
But.......You won't listen. And as a result spent years of absolute hell, misery and abuse.
   It took 23 years to be free of him and to be reunited with your one true love, Donald Ings. 
If I could go back and have do overs, it would be at these two letters and times in our life where I know by making the wrong choices our destiny was sealed in pain..

Love, 
2013 Shell.