Tag Archives: divorce

Infinity

Infinity

cold
morning
leaves swirling
thoughts drifting back
to my past struggles
a long and winding path
my heart scarred, my soul shattered
but life is full of surprises
fate placed us both in Oklahoma
two lives intersecting at point in time
forces cast us onto divergent paths
then looped us back to infinity
upon the wings of hope and trust
you healed my broken spirit
infusing me with strength
fresh blood in my veins
long story short
love and faith
rescued
me

Colleen Keller Breuning
September 30, 2023

Happy Saturday! This was a pretty daunting challenge this week. To make a long story short, I kind of built this piece around the word “Kalamazoo,” even though it doesn’t appear inside of my poem. My husband Dan is a Michigan man, born in Detroit and raised in Rochester. He went to college at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, and it got me to thinking that I wish I knew him back then. But it would have been literally impossible.

You see, we were both on journeys in our lives that took us from faraway places and placed us smack dab in the middle of Oklahoma in 1982, working in the same office at Arthur Anderson & Co. accounting firm. We had completely different lives, I was married and he had a steady girlfriend at the time. Then the oil and gas bust occurred, and layoffs began to happen. He took a position in Ft. Lauderdale with Deloitte, Haskins & Sells and eventually I divorced, moved back to Maryland and transferred to the AA&CO Washington, DC office. It was a soul crushing experience, the commute was numbing, and I longed for something more meaningful. Then a mutual friend mentor, Joni Frye Way, reconnected Dan and I back in the late 80’s when there was no internet or cell phones. We talked on the phone and wrote letters to each other that summer. In the fall, I flew to Florida for a visit, we fell in love, and as the saying goes, the rest is history. It got me to pondering – we are an infinity loop! Our lives looped, met and returned to permanently intersect.

Dan truly did rescue me… I am grateful for his love and support during our 35 years of marriage. He is truly the love of my life and my best friend. I thank God for putting me where I had to be to change my path in life and to get to where I was destined to be. I am forever grateful for that.

The cycle of friendship is another aspect of infinity that I experienced this week. I was blessed to meet my best college buddy Susan Miles Schlossburg for lunch on Thursday, we dined at Magnolia’s and got caught up on life happenings. Then on Friday night, I drove up to Maryland and met up with a fantastic group of St. Mary’s Catholic School friends at Antietam Brewery, which included my VVBFITWWW (very very best friend in the whole wide world) Marianne Krepp Hess. We’ve been besties since Kindergarten, then I left SMCS after 5th grade and we reconnected the summer between 8th and 9th grade. We’ve been through the best and worst of times, and I love her so much. There were a few classmates that I’d not seen since 5th grade, and it was just so wonderful to reconnect and share memories and life stories. Friendship can be forever!

Life is truly miraculous, if you put things in perspective. The secret is that you have to put forth energy, be positive and count your blessings of health, love and life. So go ahead, reach out and make that reconnection to someone. Life is far too short and precious. I hope you have a great weekend, friends and family! Love y’all!

xoxo
Colleen

Mood: Happy
Inspiration: “You’re My Best Friend” by Queen

Ecrits Blogophilia Week 13.15 – To Make a Long Story Short
Hard Bonus: Incorporate a line from the movie “Elephant Man” (“Life is full of surprises”)
Easy Bonus: Mention Kalamazoo

Another Oklahoma Day

Another Oklahoma Day  

It’s just another Oklahoma day,
the blazing sun is dropping low.
The crops are wilting in the fields,
the ominous west wind blows.

Relentless heat is a wall of fire,
draining the life out of my veins.
My lungs struggle to take in fresh air,
bones and muscles racked with pain.

Tired eyes turn skyward, pray for rain,
let it flood the plains and meadows brown.
End this plague and quench this thirst.
Lord, let your grace come tumbling down.

As if on cue, the sky begins to darken,
lightning flickers behind brewing clouds.
Thunder crashes, rattling the windows
as twilight casts its dreadful shroud.

The winds shriek throughout the night,
with a terrifying freight train sound.
The morning sun rises, illuminating
broken wings scattered on the ground.

Take me from this God-forsaken place,
where stormy weather is here to stay.
This red clay prison is breaking me,
but it’s just another Oklahoma day.

Colleen Keller Breuning © 2023
June 16, 2023

Hello! We are finally getting some rain this week after a month of drought in Northern Virginia. There were thunderstorm warnings last night, but I only heard a little thunder. I’m actually craving a nice summer thunderstorm – but please spare the power outage, haha!!

For some reason, the topic of stormy weather got me to thinking of the years I lived in Oklahoma back in the 1980’s. I was working for Arthur Andersen & Company, a wonderful job where I made many lifetime friends and also where I met Dan. However, it was also a very sad, traumatic time in my life when I was being forced to make major changes and life decisions for Vince and myself.

I was reminded of the relentless Oklahoma heat that felt like it was sucking the life out of me. (But… it’s a dry heat LOL!) The storms were so very intense there! I do love a good thunderstorm, but there were quite a few tornado warnings that sent me running into the shelter of the bathtub with my pets as one passed over my house. I even got stuck in a tornado one night on Interstate 35 while driving home from my  college classes in Edmond. That was one of the scariest moments ever, to literally not be able to see a thing because the red dirt was pouring down in the dark and pounding the windshield like rain! I had to come to a complete stop on the interstate, and it is a miracle I did not get rear ended. Funny how you start remembering these things from 40 years ago…

After I left Oklahoma in 1986 with broken wings, I vowed I would NEVER go back. Well, never say never…. I did go back, in fact, to reunite with my good friends Joni, Donna, Janell and Dianne years later. We had quite a few meet-ups over the years, but the one to Oklahoma was personal and cathartic. It was very emotional touching down at Will Rogers Airport, and I felt unsteady at first coming back to a place where I’d experienced so much pain.  We stayed at a lovely bed & breakfast in Norman, had wonderful meals together, visited the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial and talked about the good old days. By then, Arthur Anderson had shut down, and many other things in the city had changed. But I had changed, too…. and I was grateful to revisit my past, purge the bad memories and walk the streets of a city that I once knew and loved.

Anyway, that’s my poem for the week. I have a birthday next week, and it occurs to me that I am who I am because of both the wonderful and difficult experiences I have had, the beautiful people I have met, and the different places I have lived. I truly believe that all of this has shaped my life and led me on an amazing path. And … I am eternally grateful for that! So, if you have been part of my life journey, I thank you and I love you! Have a wonderful weekend and Happy Juneteenth to all!

Xoxo Colleen

Mood: Reflective
Inspiration: “Broken Wings” by Mr. Mister

Ecrits Blogophilia Week 50.14 – Stormy Weather Ahead
Hard Bonus: Use an onomatopoeia (a word that sounds like the noise it describes) Crashes, racked, quench, tumbling
Easy Bonus: Incorporate the word plague