A nice start.

She reverted back to that fated day when she was a child and she had thought she had reached the end. The apparatus that assisted her in floating had failed and she had begun to sink to the bottom of the pool; which for her might as well have been the bottom of the ocean. She fought and fought. She kicked, she flailed her arms, she reached as far as she could to try to get above the water. Until the water had begun to fill her tiny little lungs and she no longer had the strength to fight. She kicked her last kick and then began to sink. On that fated day, it was her grandmother who saved her. Getting her out of the water in the knick of time, bringing her to safety on the deck, and confidently performing CPR to get the water out of her lungs. All she could remember was coughing hard and loud and finally opening her eyes to see her family above her. Their joy at her survival was quickly replaced with her mother's trademark scolding. And in an instant, what she thought was an inevitable death had returned to complete normalcy.

But this time, drowning was different. It wasn't physical. No one could see her flailing around, kicking, reaching, gasping for air. No one could hear her. No one could feel it, but her. It was within. Her life had somehow become an incessant cause of unfathomable sorrow. She didn't know what she wanted to be, what she wanted for herself, much less what she wanted for others, she didn't even know what to do in any situation. She was completely and seemingly irrevocably, lost. She tried everything she could to think of to save herself from drowning in it all. And then, like a beacon of light a voice had said to her, "You should leave. You need to let go. You need to help yourself before you help others." And with that it seemed so clear. What she had needed all along, was exactly what she had feared the most: leaving everything and everyone she had come to know and love. She decided to leave despite the fear and doubt.

And so, just as she had done with everything else in her life, she mentally and emotionally prepared herself for leaving. Almost beginning to shut herself down. Much like how her tiny body had begun to shut down the first time she nearly drowned so long ago. She was prepared to kick her last kick, close her eyes, gasp her last breath, and go.

But for some ridiculously strange reason, God somehow deemed her worthy of the best man she had ever known. Just when she thought that the next step she needed to take was to be prepared to be unhappy for the rest of her life, everything changed. She fell in love with a man, and for some explanation she would probably never understand, he loved her back. And for the very first time in as long as she could remember, she woke up happy. She was finally able to believe what people meant when they said everyday was a gift. Because while friends and family had been more than she could ever ask for in terms of love and support, respect and kindness, it was different. She was no longer lost as long as she was loved by him. She was given a purpose, a reason for living. She was in love.

It's good.

And just when she thought it wasn't possible, that she would be doomed do a life of incessant sorrow he saved her. There he had been hiding in plain sight, the both of them never believing it was at all possible. That the saying was in fact true: Once in a while, right in the middle of an ordinary life, Love gives us a fairytale.

For the longest time, she could not remember what it meant to be happy. Nor could she associate any sort of happiness with any kind of sobriety. And then it was different. Because finally it was uncomplicated and clear. Finally someone had loved her as much as she loved him. It was so simple, and right, and good. And so she wanted to believe that it was all just too good to be true. That soon some kind of ball would drop and he would find out everything horrible about her and leave her for good. But it never did. Thus she was left to wonder what the hell she could've done to have such a wonderful, perfect man love her.