Love Gone Sideways

Valerie is a mature, energetic, and resourceful woman, with an independent lifestyle her work as a technical writer facilitates. She is a woman who has seen a lot, loved a lot, and cried a lot. As a single woman raising her daughter, she’d had a difficult, long-term relationship, and one Valerie fought hard to put behind her. That man had a hold on her that became a lifelong obsession for both of them. For her in particular, it was quite the rocky road. Try as she might, she was never able to balance the scales. Did all the good times with him outweigh the bad, or was it the reverse? Had he ever intended to give her the life he’d promised her for decades? It was so vitally important to her to be able to give her daughter the life Valerie believed she deserved, with a mother and a father, perhaps a sibling or two, and maybe even a house they could call their own.After many disappointments, Valerie had put that man aside for a while, and filled her life with other highly rewarding experiences with family and friends. Ultimately, however, she couldn’t stay away from him. It wasn’t until she crossed paths with a man unlike any she’d ever imagined she’d meet that Valerie was finally able to see what she’d been missing for so long. It was love, the way it was supposed to be, not the way she’d experienced it for so long. She was truly happy in this new and fulfilling relationship, just as though it were designed especially for her. Still, letting go of her past was not quite that easy. She had a few more hurdles yet to overcome.This is the story of a woman’s determination in the face of insurmountable odds. Her courage, persistence, and creativity, plus the openness of her heart, were all put to the test of a lifetime – nearly her entire lifetime.