Alan and I were both jaded in love and had no intentions of dating again.

We had been hurt too many times before and didn’t believe real love existed.

I had been out to dinner with a girlfriend and she needed to go home.

I wasn’t ready to go home and decided to go to a new bar in town for a beer.

I walked into the small bar and happened to see a friend of mine from years before

that I had not seen in almost ten years.

She was a coworker from a previous job.

I grabbed my beer and sat down in an empty chair beside her to say hello.

I don’t typically do that, just sit down and talk to someone,

but something gave me the courage to do so.

I did not realize it was pool league night and her team were in the middle of a match.

Alan was at the table shooting and it was his chair I “stole.”

He comes back to the table and sees me there and we began talking.

He and my friend were good friends and he remembers thinking if I was mutual friends,

I must be someone worth knowing.

Alan and I talked about our lives,

he had just returned from a weekend in Atlanta, a place he used to live.

He was at Dragoncon, an Atlanta Con festival.

As he was telling me about the trip, I was excited because

I had always wanted to go to that convention.

He showed me pictures of actors he met, and I recognized them immediately.

He and I were both huge sci-fi fans and the actors were in my favorite tv show.

The show was his favorite as well.

He didn’t believe that I knew of the show, not many people did.

I had to prove it to him and slyly gave him my number for him to call.

My ringtone was the tv show’s theme song.

We talked for hours, and after I get home, I received a text that said, “I can’t believe you know Stargate.” (Name of the show) on a side note Stargate had been a comfort to both of us. We both were fans and would enjoy watching to escape from very difficult lives. We had no idea that we had so many connections, mutual friends, even same employers at different times, but never met. Until the time was right. Side note: We went to Dragoncon together a year ago and we were able to tell the actors how much the show means to us and had brought us together.

The rest is history. We enjoy spending time together and hate being apart. Our favorite saying is “We are we”. We are best friends on top of everything else we share. We enjoy a love deeper than anything else we have ever known. We have both been married twice before, to people who didn’t appreciate what we were. We both were the one who loved more and had given up on love. We even talked about it the night we met, that we always loved more.

I know I told you on the phone but wanted to include how the trip to Maui happened. Alan had been there as a teenager with his family and loved it. He remembers clearly thinking it was the most romantic place on earth and would love to get married there one day. He told me that, but I had not told anyone. My mother is terminally ill and in kidney failure. She has to go to dialysis three times a week and is in a tremendous amount of pain. She called me out of the blue and said she wanted to pay for us to get married on the beach in Maui. I asked if I had mentioned Hawaii or anything and she said no, that she just knew we were supposed to marry there.

Who would have thought a southern boy who grew up in Memphis, moved to Atlanta, then to Kansas on a whim would meet the girl who was an Air Force brat and lived all over the country would meet? I have lived in Florida, Alaska,  Utah, and Kansas. We both feel like the past relationships, moves, ups and downs, all brought us to be the people we needed to be at the perfect time for us to meet.

We will be celebrating our third anniversary September 4th, the day we travel to Hawaii. The last three years we have been through deep waters. Some days he holds me up, and some days I hold him up. Previous relationships we had the other person give up and we were left to struggle alone. This relationship is different than any we have other known. We can depend on the other to get through the hard stuff. We have had health scares, kids who needed help, parents who needed help, job changes, bills, and moving, yet we have forged through it all together.

We are happier than ever. This is the relationship we never dared to hope for. We both feel that we could never get through this life without the other. We both hates being apart and countdown to time we can be together.

We are we.

Shaunna & Allen Luv Story Blessing

We are We.

To have met with such apparent ‘happenstance’…

A seemingly random intersection of souls going with the flow of our journeys.

In life we often can’t really know true love…

Until we have experienced a love not so true.

Although we are all full and complete beings…

We are still on a journey towards whatever is awaiting us

just beyond the bend of our perceptions…

Having the comfort of True Love helps us take it all in stride

as we bump along the road of life.

Not to just say that each other ‘completes’ the other.

For we are already complete Beings…

But the True Love of a Soul Mate helps manifest

 the inspirations to fulfill our higher calling.

And abide in the calming equanimity of True Love.

Shaunna’s mom passed away before the wedding….

I know it must be hard for you, as a lifetime of reassuring memories

of the dearest of relationships, we can have here on our journeys through life. 

Be happy for your Mom…

and be happy for yourself,

for all the love your Mom gave to you is Always Already Alright

and within you.

When we move from here to that place that is…

 just beyond the bend of our perceptions,

They say we become at One with it all.

So in that sense, whenever you see things of natural beauty,

know that your Mom is part of that Divine Splendor.

She is that sparkle on a body of water on a moonlit night.

She is the reflection from a dew drop resting on a morning flower.

She is the unconditional love within you that she helps create.

Know that she is indeed in a better place,

a place more real than what we can possibly know now.

Be good to yourself, and celebrate her life…

as there is really nothing to mourn…

Only to celebrate her life and love 😉 

————

Luv Story Update!

Aloha from Florida!

Alan and I moved to the Pensacola area (Navarre) from Kansas this past May.

Have a blessed evening.

We are loving our beach life and very happily married. ❤️

Alan and Shaunna Maddox