All you need is a little conviction.

If you've never gone through a divorce, there really isn't any way you could ever understand the emotional toll it takes, the way you feel battered and beaten to the core.  If you've never been cheated on, someone's explanation of such a thing doesn't carry the nausea, the confusion, the broken heart the moment you find out, and the lingering questions of how and why.  It takes time to move on, but it's possible.  Feelings are long gone, but the pain stings for awhile more, the fear and the 'what ifs' of future fuck ups.  I told myself the past can't control the present, but I'll be damned if that's not the hardest thing I face.  I've been through enough, the product of a cheating marriage and subsequent divorce, but my consternation holds me back from living forward.  I said I'd prove them all wrong, have the happy marriage from the example that was never set.  All wrong though, I was just like the others, incapable of sustaining a family.  I tried, and failed, and still, it stings.  If I'd been told years ago it'd all fall apart, I wouldn't have believed them, would have laughed in their faces.  Fear controls me now, and it's all but fair.  My past shouldn't have the power, but I'm having to learn, trial and error, how to allow a new love to blossom. 

In spite of it all, in spite of all the hurt I've faced, I am lucky.  I am loved, and I am lucky.  He is my hope, my breath of fresh air after such a long suffocation.  Through him, with him, I see love, and smiles, and laughs.  Just let it be, Hilary, just let it be.  Don't stifle happiness and that which is meant to be, with your unnerving fear of failure.  You know that feeling you get around him?  When you look in his eyes, and your heart starts pounding; all of the sudden, you feel like you're free falling, and your insides are stirring, wanting more.  Allow yourself to feel that, fears aside.  Believe in love.  Picture your life as you want it, and make your dreams come true.  Trust undeniably that good things can happen.  Love exists, but, Hilary, you've got to have a little faith.