Three years can sometimes seem like three thousand years, and at other times, it feels like three seconds. The perception of time is so variable depending on its contents in our conscious experience.

When I used to craft romance novels, hours seemed like minutes. I was so focused on the characters, the pacing, and the plot unfolding before me that time seemed to evaporate into my flow of invested thought. As I transferred words onto the page, the sense of something greater than myself was very powerful. As so many artists caught in the dance of doing have said before me, the creative process is fueled by that unimaginable power that permeates the world with life, energy, and mystery.

Even now as I type these words, I marvel at the thoughts as they flow from my mind, translated via fingers to the keyboard. Often when I look back at my words, I ask myself, "Did I write that?" It is an inexplicable phenomena: making something that has never existed before this moment.

At 2:11 p.m. on a Sunday, wind whips the trees outside in a bustling rush while Bradley Joseph plays his exquisite piano on a Pandora radio station, and Milo Yorkie is at my side. The 'real' world melts into the imagined as I allow my stream of consciousness to flow. As horrendous as the impasse of time seemed to be in the trauma of betrayal and discovery, and the agonizing days and months that followed, my mindfulness practice of presence, is at times paying off. As difficult as it is to see the runway at LAX before I arrive home from a long air journey, so too is it impossible to discern the outcome of this thing we call 'recovery'.

I remember a story told by a life coach I admire concerning a client of his that lamented the fact that he was in his early forties and had never taken a dive into his first love – medicine. As a pre-med student in college, his girlfriend had gotten pregnant right before he graduated; they'd married, and delivered a beautiful baby girl. He never pursued a post-graduate degree, but lots of love and two more children followed. As the bills rolled in and the responsibilities of young fatherhood mounted, the young man found himself working as a lab technician, supporting his new family by day, and helping his wife care for their home and children at night. The years passed joyfully, but the dream of medicine still lingered beneath the surface of his smile.

Making no decision is a decision, and there is potentially a huge cost to taking no action.

Are you vacillating between reinvesting in your shattered relationship or leaving your marriage? Are you so wounded that you simply cannot fathom ever reestablishing intimacy, emotional or sexual, with your unfaithful partner? That's okay. That is normal. It will take as long as it takes for the clouds to part for you, and for your partner. Clarity takes its own time. The mere fact that you are reading this, indicates commitment to your own healing. Bravo.

You are proactive in your forward movement. Even if you are totally blind as to the eventual outcome, you, dear friend, are moving in the right direction toward the beginning of wholeness.

You will, God willing, turn 30, 40, 50, 60 even 70 regardless of your decisions now. The century mark is on the dawning horizon of your life too.

How will you spend that time? Those decades that lie ahead?

You are worth loving and caring. Take good care of yourself, my fellow survivor. You will add to your storehouse of wisdom and strength by minute, by hour, by day, by week, by month, by year. You are going to be OK.

You have a magnificent person looking after you: Y-O-U.

Christine