My dear frog,

YOU were the ultimate hippy. A true representation of all that the 1960s stood for. Freedom. Peace. Hope. You introduced me to the world of flower power, make love not war and the concept that nothing is separate and that we are all one.

Being several years older, I assumed that you were also wiser and knew how the world worked.

Totally infatuated and oblivious to the fact that you had an invisible neon sign on your forehead flashing “Danger. Keep Away”, I lunged into a relationship with you anyway. Feet first.

With eyes wide shut, I even married you in a stone circle after your magnificent moonlight soliloquy about interconnection of all beings. I had no idea that mushrooms could be used for other things besides soup.

You taught me about sharing. We shared a home. We shared food. We shared our love together. We shared experiences.

We swam with dolphins and danced with fairies, chanted with healers and travelled with shamans to all sorts of magical places. We even slept under a specially crafted caduceus with precious gems aligning our chakras to the stars above. “We are cosmic consciousness just having a human experience,” you whispered to me as we walked along that beach in Bali, not knowing whether our feet were touching the sand or the universe.

Remember that day when I came home unexpectedly and found you in the bath with a frizzy-haired girl? I felt sick to my stomach. As smooth as a horned viper shedding its skin, the coiled words slithered from your lips: “I need to share myself with other women. Besides, I don’t want to be monogamous any more.”

In that moment, the world as I had known it came crashing down upon me.

I was devastated. An innocent babe pretending she wasn’t listening to a wolf. I let the great black shadow of your soul cover my sun, taking away all my warmth…

Thank goodness you also taught me the importance of truth and how to speak my truth. “Tell the truth and let the chips fall,” you used to say.

So I cried my truth. I shouted at you that you had hurt my feelings and stomped on my soul, that I never wanted to see you again and that I was leaving. And I did.

At the time, I never could have imagined myself thanking you, but now I want to thank you. Thank you for all that you taught me. Thank you for being one of the last frogs I kissed before meeting my prince, my soulmate, the one I am with now. Without my time with you, I may not have known the difference between a frog and a prince.

You showed me how incredibly blissful the world could be and you also showed me what Hell on Earth was like too. For both, I am eternally grateful. J

Blackrock, Co Dublin