How To Find What You Came Here For

Welcome to the worlds that populate my brain!
The short stories you find here are the product
of a vastly overactive imagination
powered by coffee and M&Ms.

Monday, August 29, 2011

Ever After


You know that fairy tale?  The one where the beautiful but lonely girl (who may or may not know she’s really a princess), meets the wonderfully handsome and charismatic man (who definitely knows he’s a prince), and they fall in love at first sight?

Yeah.  That wasn’t us.
Hubby and I met through a mutual friend in college (hi there, AmyBeth!).  She’d convinced me that offering to play a role-playing game with a group of guys was an awesome way to meet…well…guys! 

Of course, turns out they were guys who mostly didn’t have much experience with girls, so I became one of the guys, which was fine with me.  I loved our group—funny, creative, intelligent, and most of all…kind.  We played late into the night, and occasionally straight through the night.  At the end of those all-nighters, we’d head over to the cafeteria in our slippers and have breakfast together.  

xkcd - http://xkcd.com/



It was during one of our group’s marathon gaming sessions that Hubby, who was not yet the love of my life…killed me.

And to make things worse, he did it during one of the few sessions I didn’t attend.  So I died in absentia, so to speak, with no opportunity to do anything to prevent it.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, one of the basic tenets of our group was that our characters didn’t get killed off.    We worked hard on those characters; we created back stories for them and played according to their motivations even when it wasn’t in the character’s best interest.  I suppose any writer can understand the affection we’d developed for our characters—they were our alter egos, in a lot of ways.

And he killed mine.

In his defense, it was an accident.  A simple, but fatal, math mistake.

Once it was discovered what he’d done he was extremely contrite, but the damage was done.  He’d killed off the very first character I’d ever created.

I did forgive him…eventually.  There were other games, other campaigns, other characters.

He was engaged to my best friend.  I was engaged to his best friend. 

Then he wasn’t. 

And I wasn’t.

I liked him, but I wasn’t really thinking about him that way.  He was my gaming buddy—one of the guys, just like me.

Then he stopped by my apartment to visit one day, just like he’d done so many times before.  But then, while we were watching TV, he makes his move.  Picture it with me:

Huge yawn…

Both arms stretch over his head…

And when the arms come down, one just happens to come down across my shoulders.

*snort*

Yeah.  Classic, right?

There is no defense against that kind of sweet dorkiness.

I didn’t make it easy for him, though.  A co-worker suggested that he dump me after I’d sent out a series of mixed messages.  For reasons that still escape me, Hubby decided I was worth a little more effort.  We invited his helpful co-worker to our wedding…he didn’t come.

We’ve been married for nineteen years and it’s never been a fairy tale.  But then again, who wants the fairy tale, really?

I’ll take real life…warts and all...ever after.

Hey look...it's xkcd again!  http://xkcd.com/




This post is a response to a prompt from Write On Edge to write a memoir piece about our experience with someone else.   The single person I have spent the most time with, is my eternally patient Hubby.  I'm still glad he's not a prince, and I'm especially glad he's never wanted me to be a princess!  Thanks for stopping by - I appreciate all your comments!

9 comments:

  1. You sound like an awesome couple to me. I mean how many of us are perfect? Perfect leaves way too many expectations. Great post.

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  2. I'm still giggling over the comments... and the sweet dorky yawn move.

    Genius!

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  3. No matter how dorky the move was gotta give him credit for going for it after all that time...

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  4. See, my original plan was to give her lots of time to dodge if she wanted to, so I made my move as obvious as possible. Perhaps I made it so obvious she didn't see it coming. Whatever - I can't argue with the results.

    Love you too, Honey.

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  5. Aww...a sweet love story. Sounds like you were meant for each other!

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  6. Julie - exactly! I've never felt like the people in most fairy tales were terribly strong...especially the princesses.

    CDG - It was actually the first time a guy ever tried a "move" on me. I wasn't exactly sure what I was supposed to do about it! LOL

    Adventures - He was very brave! Especially since I was notorious in our little group for being seriously prickly!

    Terry - We were...and it's a little scary, sometimes. Out of a long silence with nothing going on, we can look at each other and say they exact same thing. It's like we share a brain sometimes!

    Dan - You were the smoothest operator who ever operated on me! LOL

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  7. I'm glad I could be of service lol!
    And yes, sweet dorks really are the best.
    All my initial dates with my own hubby were also while playing D&D, but Rob never killed me off!

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  8. Ha! What are the odds we'd both write about the awesome yawn move and annoying first impressions? Your comment on my post makes me laugh even more now.

    You're right. Who does want the fairy tale? I like my chaotic marriage much better.

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  9. That was probably one of the most adorable stories I've heard! My hubby and I used to play World of Warcraft together! ;-)

    Stopping over from RemembeRED

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