Excellent question – I’m still asking that myself!
A long time ago on a little website called OkCupid I met a boy. Not just any boy, however – a beautiful, thoughtful, considerate, giggling boy who when asked admitted he had no interest in my lovely décolletage but instead felt attracted by my personality – like really? Who says that?
After a few months we moved in together and spent a blissful year in absolute hell.
We shared a small apartment too tiny for our tempers (and my cats) in a rough neighborhood where the sounds of mugging could be heard as we opened the window for natural A/C at night. Both of us struggled to work/find work and make ends meet. We felt awful, we fought, and for one dreadful moment I thought, “This might be the end.”
Then this brilliant, sensitive, kind soul marched back into the room and asked, “I love you. How do we make this work?”
(again – where do these words come from?)
We sat, worked it out, and decided the problems in our lives had nothing to do with each other and everything to do with the shitty city we lived in. After venting our frustrations we hatched a plot to move far, far away to someplace less crowded that allowed dogs (cats are overrated, I have been told – especially for apartment living).
The rest, as they say, is history. We found jobs, worked those for awhile, adopted our first dog together, eventually managed to settle into our own home, and after five years of realizing this quiet soul had no intention of pushing my own stupid fear of commitment too far I made a decision.
I proposed. At our favorite bar. Over a board game. Like a boss.
We wed in a fabulous, low budget affair that barely anyone attended and have lived mostly happily ever after.
Except now I struggle with my deep, exponentially growing love for this man who continues to surprise and delight me every day of our lives. I can’t possibly show him how desperately I adore him, because that might scare him away – and I now realize he is my soulmate I cannot possibly live without.
Hence I started writing – poems, love notes, whimsical conversations, and eventually three full romance novels which I decided to publish in the hopes maybe some other lovesick fool might find them and feel inspired.
For I find romance very inspiring. It reminds me each day what I have to be grateful for – and it soothes me when the rest of the world may drive me mad.
Harper Daily 