My love for him was greater than my fear.
I have been thinking a great deal about the time I lived at the Maltby house, from 1990-1995. This was partially brought about by being hired by Printwest, which borders the suburb in the north of Woodinville. Sometimes on the way to work, depending on which route I take, I follow the same path my bus did on the way to school. For a sweet instant I am young again, going to a place I enjoyed being, a place where I fit in well and friends were easy to make.
This weekend I took my wife to Leavenworth. The old house was on the way, so I thought we might drive by it and have a look. It's exactly as I remember it; everything was so familiar that I nearly cried. All the houses were the same shapes and sizes, the lawns trimmed to perfection, the smell of fresh soil swimming through the air. All that was different was the color of our old house, painted brown now instead of white.
A curious reflection in all this is how I could feel so nostalgic for a place in which so much fear and hurt was felt. The reason is simple: my love for the man who wronged me was greater than my fear. Memories of love, in which he played catch with me and taught me to shoot baskets, are stronger than the ones of that inferior emotion. After years of letting the bad memories control my feelings, the good ones have suddenly resurfaced. All this time they lay dormant under the ash that fell after he abandoned me.
Most of the memories aren't even about him, but about all the others I spent good time with. Those are the ones I cherish most. His wrath had fogged all those memories I had living in Maltby. For years I would look back feeling sorry for myself about being emotionally abused by him. Now I look back regretting there was a divorce and that we moved away. Because before all that baggage got dumped, I remember him loving me, and me loving him.
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