Once upon a time I was married. He proposed four years ago, and we spent the next year of our lives planning a wedding that became larger than us. The wedding was beautiful and filled with good intentions, but when we decided to move apart after only one year of marriage we both knew it was best for us and that we should have never gotten married in the first place. I knew then that I would someday be able to see how our breakup was the best thing that ever happened to me. It’s a year and a half later and I’ve made a lot of progress toward that enlightenment, but I still feel a serious sense of failure that I broke my marriage vows and especially in such a short period of time.

Some promises are hard to keep, especially the ones that should have never been made in the first place. But I find that the most difficult promises to keep are then ones that start with, “I will never again…” because repeating past behavior is hard to resist in particular situations. Lately I’ve been thinking about how breaking promises can turn out to be a good thing. It can be the best thing that ever happened to someone when she dives right back into a behavior that she once promised herself she would never repeat again. And that’s what I’m exploring in my WIP. Renata is constantly making promises to herself that she cannot keep, because she shouldn’t be making such ridiculous promises in the first place. Why limit the heart? Why limit your experiences just because the first time around it brought you to utter hurt and total failure? Resistance should be futile when someone like Renata is much too hard on herself.

So the moral of this blog post is that ideally promises should be made and kept only when it’s right, which is admittedly easier said than done, and that we shouldn’t be so hard on ourselves when we don’t get it right. I should have never promised to be with my ex-husband forever when I knew that we weren’t really meant for each other, but it happened and I should give myself a break about it. I shouldn’t promise myself that I will never get married again, because there’s no telling what’s in store for me. And Renata…she too will break a lot of promises to herself when she meets Ryan, and it will be the best thing that ever happened to her.

Here’s one promise that I don’t mind making publicly and that I plan on keeping. I promise that I will finish my novel and share it with whoever wishes to read it.