Well, the good news is that my beautiful Lauren Elizabeth Kelley appears to be doing better in her studies than she did last year. Of course, given how she did last year, that probably isn’t setting the bar too high. Hopefully, she will do well enough to keep her scholarship and be able to stay at Emmanuel College, the school she was so proud of getting into and that meant so much to her because it is a Catholic college.
I know that the amazing woman I love is one of the most intelligent women I have ever met and has always been very proud of herself being a good student, even when she was much younger. I think it was her stubbornness and her pride in her academic achievements that prevented her from crashing and burning right after what I believe is the precipitating event that started her down the road to addiction seventeen months ago. Lauren Elizabeth Kelley managed to hold out until after the spring semester of her freshman year ended before she started drinking and doing drugs heavily.
The fact that she was taking five courses a semester rather than the normal four her freshman year, when she did make Dean’s List, is probably the only reason she hasn’t lost the scholarship her addictions put at risk last year. Those two extra courses are likely the only thing that kept her GPA high enough to keep the scholarship, given how it appears she did the last two semesters.
In many ways, this is also bad news, because it might allow the bright, intelligent, and stubborn woman I love to rationalize that her drinking and drug use aren’t a problem because she is now doing better than she was last year. The fact that one of her new friends uses the username PrincessP0thead and that a recent social media post seems to indicate that one of her friends’ friends was recently incarcerated, most likely for drug-related charges I would guess, doesn’t seem to bother her at all.
I hope that my beloved Lauren Elizabeth Kelley will realize that her problems with drugs and alcohol are just that—problems—and that she needs to fight them. I hope that Lauren Elizabeth Kelley’s improved scholastic performance also means she will start believing in herself again, loving herself again and trusting herself again. I hope she will trust her heart enough to take a chance on us—to give us a chance to see if the future we talked about that week in June is what we both hoped and dreamed it would be.
I would love to see the incredible woman I love again. I would love a chance to spend my birthday or the holidays together. I hope that the improvements she has been showing mean that the smart, stubborn, sexy, sweet, beautiful and honest woman that loves me is once again coming to the forefront and pushing out the drug-addicted alcoholic that has been occupying her body for much of the past seventeen months.
The past few social media posts I have seen concerning her were from someone who appears to not be a drug-addict or alcoholic…so the hope that my beautiful, feisty, honest, freckled, red-haired, and much beloved Irish woman might still survive is re-kindled.
This is the Lauren Elizabeth Kelley I love and want to marry—strong, confident, beautiful, smart, stubborn, funny, kind, feisty and compassionate.
A card for Lauren Elizabeth Kelley
God Bless you Lauren Elizabeth.
May God watch over you and protect you from all harm—even that you cause yourself.
I hope God gives you the strength to fight your addictions and the wisdom to see the truth about what the alcohol and drugs are doing to you.
I pray that God grants you the serenity and peace you will need to love yourself once again and to forgive yourself for the things your addictions have made you do.
I ask that God helps you find your way back to being the amazing, beautiful, intelligent, feisty, stubborn, strong, and devout woman He wants you to be.
Finally, may He grant you the ability to see yourself as I do and let you remember who we are to each other; let you remember the years of friendship, love and devotion we once shared; and give you the strength to make amends so we can start the future together we talked about last June.
All this in Jesus’s name I pray.
Amen.