The Prodigal

Hey guys! Long time no see.

It’s been a few weeks.

I haven’t forgotten about you guys…I’ve just been praying on how to go about this next segment.

This was the beginning of the absolute hell I put my husband through. (Not hell in a bad word way, hell in a place sort of way)

This is a really important segment in my story, so I can’t skip over it…but I have a choice about how in detail I want to go about this, and after a lot of prayer, a long talk with Shane, and after thinking on it for a few weeks..I think I know what I want to share about this…and what I don’t want to share about this.

I left my husband standing at the door of our apartment.

I had every intention on coming back. I wouldn’t leave my kids for anything, and he knew that. He knew I wasn’t leaving for good. He knew I was leaving in another sense.

I walked away from our relationship.

Now not REALLY, because through everything you all have heard and everything you will hear….we never “broke up”.

I would bring it up. I would ask for us to take a break from one another and Shane would refuse. At the time, I felt trapped.

I know now though, that were the roles reversed now…I would do the same.

He would beg me to stay and I would beg him to let me go.

I don’t think I really wanted to go.

If I had’ve..I would’ve just left. He didn’t hold me hostage or anything. It was just like I was waiting on his blessing for me to leave…and he would not budge.

If I’m being honest…I don’t think I really wanted to leave.

Knowing the person that I was, I think I just wanted eat my cake and have it to.

I wanted to still have the husband and still do whatever I wanted to do. And I remember even saying as much to Shane.

No matter what I said, his choice stayed the same. He chose to stay with me…

And til this day I will never know why.

So we were never “apart” for the entirety of our marriage. There were no breaks, there was no packing bags, there was no on again and off again during this whole thing. We were very much still a married couple and very much still did married couple things.

So I left my apartment that day and I went to whatever the heck name we’ve given hims house,

Casper, wasn’t it? I think so.

The whole time there I tried talking myself out of it, but I just kept driving.

I told myself when I got there it wasn’t going to go a certain way. I told myself that it was going to just be a catch up and hang out sort of thing. But even I couldn’t make myself believe that. I knew I was going to dig my own grave with this trip and I did just that.

When I saw him for the first time since I watched the ambulance take him away… I didn’t have “butterflies”, I didn’t get excited, or anything.

I saw red flags and heard alarms.

I knew I was about to mess up.

It had been years, there was no sense of familiarity anymore. We were both totally different individuals now and farrrrr from the high schoolers we were.

We started out watching TV and then boom. I made the worst mistake of my life.

You might be thinking I did a certain thing. Often times, when I tell my testimony people assume a lot of things. And thats valid, because I usually leave a lot of details out just because I usually talk about my testimony and story on my channel and I like to keep my channel very tame. It’s sometimes hard to do that given my past, but I try.

I feel more comfortable speaking about it over here because you kind of know what you’re in for when you come over here to the blog posts. And I have alerts all over the website stating my blog posts are for ages 18 and up due to difficult subjects talked about, and just the nature of it all.

So forewarning, if you don’t want to know the details..don’t read any further. I’m not going to just lay everything that happened out there, but I do want to say something I’ve wanted so badly to say since first telling my story on YouTube.

Shane is my partner. And there are many things I’ve only done with him.

I let it go too far on this day. There were no sparks or anything, it was dull and lifeless. I’ve never told anyone this and never spoken out loud about it, but I remember thinking “this does not make me feel like I feel when I’m kissing Shane.”

Once that thought ran across my mind… I was out of there.

I stopped everything dead in its tracks, jumped out of that bed, and sped home.

I’m thankful I didn’t let it go any further than it did, but thats the only thing Old Merina ever did right. She doesn’t deserve to be praised for that. She had already done enough damage. Praising her for that would be like someone stabbing someone almost to death and then praising them for not killing them.

I called Shane on my way home and I was bawling. He knew, I know he knew. I was honest to God waiting for a blow…that never came.

He said “come home honey its going to be okay”

I almost ran off the road.

I pulled in and he was waiting at the same door I left him at and there’s not a day that goes by that that doesn’t replay in my head and torture me.

As I ran up to him he had his arms open ready for a hug

And that was the first time I ever saw Jesus in anybody. I REALLY met Jesus that day, and Shane introduced us. It was then that I realized Shane had a supernatural kind of love for me that directly mirrored the love that God has for me.

There’s no other explanation. If it were not true, he would’ve been gone a long time ago.

Besides a few argumentative texts afterwards that evening…I have never spoken to Casper since. A few months before I started YouTube, he sent me a friend request.

And there wasn’t a cell in my body that wanted to accept it.

I didn’t get it all right after that. In fact, I got a lot more wrong. This is just the beginning of my mess. But Shanes hug that day was also the beginning of my redemption.

Over a decade later, I can still recall it as if it were yesterday. I can still see that image in my mind as if it were right in front of me. Shane welcoming me with a hug. Sometimes that image haunts me and sometimes that image brings me to my knees overflowing with gratefulness.

I felt like the prodigal son that day.

I wanted to change. I don’t know why I didn’t sooner. But Shane would go through harder times soon. And it would make this situation look like a PBS episode.

I hate who I was.