A Love Story. – Judd Exley

A simple, rural, mountain, town is where an intelligent, soulful boy spends the first part of his life. His home gradually expands from the basement where he sleeps into multiple ranch dwellings and assorted dinner tables. His family extends from more than his distant blood-relatives to include those that love him, even if they only showed him by feeding him the occasional meal.

His yearning for more from life leads him to college in a distant state, in a place that is as different from his home as he could imagine. He thought that this was what he wanted, but his continued yearning for more from life leads him back to a mountainous state, to a place that he felt he could find what he needed. With little to his name, he carved out an education, a career, and a life, yet the yearning never left him.

He was always, always, looking for more.

He muddled through his adult years and their accompanying dramas until he finally conceded that his looking and yearning should either be completely over or given their inherent due.

His soul simply couldn’t rest.

Mistakes were made and lessons were learned. As per usual in his life, nothing came to him the easy way. He continued on though, and never let up.

Then, he found it.

A city, and it’s assorted semi-rural outcroppings, is where a deeply thoughtful girl is raised. She finds as much beauty and magic in parts of her life as unprovoked hurt and pain exerts itself into it. She takes what life offers her, in it’s beauty and it’s ugliness, and she accepts it all.

She feels the same yearning though, the same absence, and she looks for more in everything she does.

Her early adult life continues to provide her with more duress than any one person should ever have to even be aware of. She continues looking and yearning, though she is somewhat unaware of it, thinking her soul asleep and placated by the life that she has struggled through.

Her soul hears something though, and it responds, at first unknowingly.

She hesitates to listen, for her life has taught her that her yearning was to be unfulfilled and her looking to be futile. Again, mistakes were made and lessons were learned.

Then, she found it.

Two people, who couldn’t be from more distant parts of the world, find that they couldn’t be more similar. From one end to the other of every spectrum imaginable, they are completely compatible. They are completely in love.

They meet in person and, for the first time in either of their lives, they are made whole.

The yearning and looking is over.

They are complete.

They are real.

And the World will never be the same.

The Eternal Celebrant, Charlie Brown, informs us that we’re married for REAL.