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Love’s Open Door

Nancy's Notes 🖊️♬

Written for Thursday Inspiration –
“Keep On Loving You”

For this week’s Thursday Inspiration, Jim Adams asks us to respond to the challenge in any number of ways, including using the prompt word forever, by means of the song ‘Keep on Loving You’ by REO Speedwagon, or another song about forgiveness of past mistakes. I’ve written a story …. a stream of consciousness …. in response to Jim’s challenge.

Image by Me & Copilot

Love’s Open Door

The news arrives sideways, through a mutual friend’s careless mention over coffee, and something in his chest folds inward. She’s with someone else now. Of course. Of course she is.

He thinks of the apartment with the leaking faucet neither of them fixed, the year his car died twice, the fights about money that were never really about money. Bad luck seemed to follow them like a stray dog, and somewhere along the way they stopped being able to tell if the storms were outside them or between them.

Still, he’d believed in forever. He’d been so certain of it …. the two of them as some fixed point, immovable, the kind of thing you build a whole future around without ever questioning the foundation. He’d pictured decades. Gray hair. The same fights, maybe, but grown gentle with age.

Funny thing about love. You think if two people are steady, if they’ve weathered enough together, that’s the anchor. But maybe that steadiness, that predictability, is exactly what sends people looking for something else, some restlessness that peace itself provokes, an itch for the unknown pasture even when the one you’re standing in is green enough. Contentment curdling into complacency, complacency into wandering eyes.

He doesn’t know if he’s angry or just tired. Maybe forgiveness is the only road that doesn’t circle back to this same ache.

NAR©2026

This is “The Heart of the Matter” by Don Henley

Thursday Inspiration #335 Keep on Loving You

Many thanks to Jim Adams for this week’s inspiration. Thanks to you all for stopping by for a look and a listen.

That’s all she wrote, kids.

See you on the flip side. 😎

Everything on The Elephant’s Trunk was created by me, unless otherwise indicated. Thanks for your consideration. NAR©2017-present.

31 thoughts on “Love’s Open Door”

  3. Perhaps there’s confort in the familiarity of old arguments, as long as they’re accompanied by a pinch of humor and a dash of forgiveness to ease us into acceptance. 🤔😉

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  5. Nancy, this is so true. The apartment with the leaking faucet. The car dying twice. The fights that were never about money. You captured exactly how love can fade, not from betrayal, but from small disappointments that pile up until people stop believing in forever.

    And that ending. “Maybe forgiveness is the only road that doesn’t circle back to this same ache.”

    Yes. That is where healing starts. Not pretending it didn’t hurt. But choosing to forgive, them, yourself, the life you thought you’d have.

    That song is perfect with this. Don Henley knows this ache. Thank you for writing it so honestly. 💙

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  7. Nice story, Nancy. Undoubtedly, relationships can have their challenges as they go on, and taking things for granted and/or conflict can happen. While in certain cases ending a relationship is the right thing to do for both partners, I also feel that over-emphasis on self-actualization and an unwillingness to compromise lead to break-ups that could have been avoided. And that’s unfortunate, especially once a relationship has been legalized and kids are part of the equation. To end on a more cheerful note, “The Heart of the Matter” is one of my all-time favorite songs by Don Henley.

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    1. Good points, Christian. Take it from someone who’s been married to the same guy for 54 years: if people want to work things out, they will; it takes communication, understanding, mutual respect, patience, and a good sense of humor. Many people give up too quickly without putting in the effort. Real life’s not like that.

      I love this song, too. I’ve been digging Don Henley a lot lately. Thanks!

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  8. What a touching story Nance – beautifully told the ending is just perfect ‘Maybe forgiveness is the only road that doesn’t circle back to this same ache.’ and wonderful track to go with it 🙌

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