The Road’s the Same but I’m Not

Today we headed out of town to celebrate my husband’s birthday. I am so thankful for another year with him.

On our way toward the ocean, we passed my old neighborhood.

The one my first husband left me and our two little boys in.

I don’t go that way often. But every so often, life takes me down that road again.

It’s strange how a place can hold so many memories.

Five years later, driving by still hurt. I could almost feel the weight of those early days again—the fear, the uncertainty, and the responsibility of trying to figure out what came next for my boys and me.

Ten years later, I remembered how hard I had fought to put our lives back together.

Fifteen years later, the memories were still there, but they didn’t have the same hold on me.

Twenty years later, I could look back and see just how far God had brought us.

And today—twenty-five years later—I looked out the window and realized even the landscape has changed.

The open fields I remember are now lined with almond trees.

My life looks nothing like it did then either.

It has been twenty-five years with the man sitting beside me. The man who has had my back. Who helped me raise my boys. Who has fought beside me, cried with me, laughed with me—and never left us.

There was a time when driving past that neighborhood reminded me mostly of what I had lost.

Today was different.

As we drove past it on our way to celebrate my husband’s birthday, I found myself thinking about everything God has given me since.

Not because what happened back then didn’t matter. It did.

Not because it didn’t hurt. It did.

But it doesn’t hurt the same way anymore.

The road is the same.

But I’m not.

Maybe that’s one of the quiet ways we recognize healing. Not because we’ve forgotten what happened or because every painful memory disappears, but because one day we can look at a place that once represented so much loss and realize it no longer has the power it once did.

Today, that old neighborhood disappeared behind us as we kept driving toward the ocean.

Twenty-five years.

I’m especially thankful for this birthday.

For God’s faithfulness through all the years between then and now.

And for the man sitting beside me as we keep driving forward. ❤️