My Story; Our Story
My Story.
On November 30, 2000, I moved to Florida from my beloved city of Chicago. I never wanted to leave Chicago, but my family moved in June of the same year and I just couldn't be so far away from them. Reluctantly, at the age of 23, I packed up my belongings and moved. It wasn't easy. I left a boyfriend, great friends, cousins, and a killer salsa scene behind. The transition was awful. West Palm Beach, Florida was incredibly 'slow' for my liking. When I first arrived, I expected to see a horse drawn carriage trotting down the street. I was a city girl and I loved the fast pace of the big city life. Florida just didn't feel like "home" to me. I spent New Year's Eve alone that year in my mother's home crying in the bottom bunk of my brothers' bedroom just fantasizing about what all of my friends were doing up North. I refused to bring the New Year in with a bunch of old strangers (my mother's friends.)
Fast forward to January, 2001. I took two trips back to Chicago between December and January, and quickly realized that life in Florida wasn't entirely that bad. Florida was a really beautiful state. I signed up with several online social media sites to try to make new friends, specifically those in the 'salsa scene.' At the time, my options were limited. There was no facebook or myspace... just migente.com, yahoo groups, and I can't remember the name of the salsa website that allowed you to browse through potential dance partners, but I had a profile there too. I was determined to make this Florida thing work out... well, I was at least open to giving it a fair chance.
Meanwhile, in Boston MA, a new baby girl was born that month on the 4th. I now call her my beautiful Bellarina. Though I hadn't met them yet, my life story was already being written.
Fast forward a few months... I received news that one of my old roommates from Indiana had moved to Orlando, about 2 hours North of where I lived. Our friendship was on the rocks when I left, but we quickly reconciled. I loved Orlando and she loved South Florida, so we visited each other on the weekends. She had a really flamboyant and crazy male cousin named Barnaby. Oh Barnaby was my buddy. I really, really loved him. He was a great source of quality entertainment and really deserved his own show. I do believe he would have gotten one, but he passed away several years ago. (RIP)
Anyway, during one of my weekends in Orlando, Barnaby took us to Parliament House, a popular gay club in Orlando. I've had lots of gay friends in my life and I've loved them all. Being at a gay club was not weird to me at all. I spent a lot of time in Boys' Town in Chicago gay-club hopping with friends. I knew the night was going to be loads of fun.
Now, pause. I had boyfriends all my life and never even dreamed I would ever end up with a woman. I just wanted to interject that here, so you could visualize the whole experience that night. It's kind of hard to imagine that train of thought now, since I've spent more than a decade of my life knowing the truth and for the most part, hiding my true feelings to my family and close friends. I also have to say that despite of what your religious upbringing may lead you to believe, I was born this way. Some people think that gays and lesbians are influenced by others to choose their sexual orientation. I don't disagree with this statement. Society did play a role in my sexual orientation, although probably not the role you are thinking. During my teenage/early twenties, it was society rules that made me just follow along with what was the 'norm' and date boys. I didn't know I was the only one in my circle of friends who didn't quite feel the butterflies. When the girls in my middle school classes drooled over hot boys, I was still playing with cabbage patch dolls and barbies. Music and dance were more interesting to me at the time than boys, and I was okay with that. But, I did get my first kiss in the 9th grade (something I never admitted to any of my friends because they had theirs in elementary school.) It was okay. No sparks, though. As a cute girl, I had a lot of attention from boys in high school and sure, I accepted them as boyfriends, but all we ever did was hold hands and maybe kiss in the hallway, LOL. I have to chuckle because my first boyfriend and first real boy crush (the one I would have probably agreed to marry) are now both openly gay males. In fact, there are at least 5 guys I dated in my lifetime who are now either openly gay or I suspect are gay. This is a vital piece of information, because they are also very much in tune with their feminine sides, and I can't help but wonder if that was what attracted me so much.
Now that you have that tidbit of information, let's go back to the story.
My BFF, her cousin, and I were at PH dancing the night away. As the night was coming to an end, Barnaby dared me to get a girl's phone number that night. What?! I didn't know how to approach anybody to get a phone number, much less a woman. I was raised to never pursue a man; let them pursue me. So, when it came to trying to get a phone number from a woman - I was a clueless mess. But, I was up for the challenge. I will admit, curiosity got the best of me. But, as I looked around the room, there was nobody who caught my eye... until I saw her... across the room... dancing, drinking, laughing, and having a great time with a group of friends.
Liz.
This is where "our story" begins.
I didn't know how to approach her, so I just sat back and watched her for a while. As the night progressed, she didn't really give me much of a chance to talk to her. She was dancing non-stop. I loved that about her, because I could dance the night away too! I noticed that she took her shoes off at one point and kept dancing. We were getting ready to leave, so I walked up to her circle of friends and lost my nerve. I was starting to walk away, and as I passed by her, I grabbed her shoes and kept on walking out the door.
She noticed that I stole her shoes and followed me out to the parking lot saying "Hey! Those are my shoes!" I threw them into the trunk of my car and said "Really? Prove it!" That's how we started talking. We talked a little bit, quickly exchanged phone numbers, (I returned her shoes) and I went home.
We talked on the phone several times that night and the next day. We made plans to meet for dinner that weekend, and she stood me up!! I went back home to West Palm Beach and never thought we'd speak again. But, she called. As it turns out, she had a girlfriend and lost her nerve. She didn't know what my intentions were. I told her that I was sort of seeing someone as well (a man) and that my intentions were not to start a relationship or even have more than a friendship with her, but looking back, I completely understood where she was coming from... I mean, I didn't think I was interested in her, because she was a woman. But, she intrigued me to the point where we carried on lengthy phone conversations during the week and tried to see each other again the following weekend when I would either go back to Orlando or she would come to West Palm Beach with my BFF to visit me.
I went to visit her. This time, she invited me to her friends' house, where she was temporarily living. I went with my BFF and with her cousin. We hung out for a while and had a nice time, but I honestly did not like any of her friends, and they didn't like me. I was known as the "straight bitch" and they were just a classless bunch of girls who were all living together in a house partying 24:7. We came from completely different worlds and I just felt like she was so different from all of them, I just didn't understand what she was doing there.
As we talked more and more, I learned that she was new in town. She had recently had a baby daugher in Boston, and moved to Orlando to her mother's house. But, because she came out as a lesbian to her mother, the mom kicked her out of the house and kept her baby from her. (Hispanic parents are not easy to come out to.) We left her friends' house that night with all of her belongings. My BFF and I took her to her mother's house and tried our best to help her reconcile with her mother so that she wouldn't miss another minute of her daughter's life.
Bella was so tiny, active, beautiful, smart, vibrant, energetic, talkative, magnetic, and charismatic. All of those things are still true today.
Liz moved back with her mom and we continued our 'friendship'. I was very confused about our relationship. I knew I had feelings for her, but I didn't know what kind of feelings or even what to do with them. She came to visit me in West Palm Beach one weekend and kissed me. Suddenly, my entire life made sense. It was the aha moment of aha moments. At 24 years of age, I finally knew what butterflies in your stomach felt like. I knew what the electric current felt like when fingertips touched. I knew I was finally feeling what all of my friends described they felt when kissing boys, except I was kissing a girl. I was kissing her, and it felt right. It felt perfect.
We had this "thing" for quite a while; years. I spent a lot of time in Orlando visiting Liz and Bella and sometimes, they came to South Florida to visit. Liz was in school and working full time, and there was at least one occasion where Bella stayed the weekend with me in South Florida. Sometimes, the three of us would drive to Tampa to visit my mom. We were inseparable, when we could spend time together. When we couldn't physically be together, Liz and I talked on the phone, but our friendship with partial benefits was not what she wanted or needed. It wasn't enough. Especially since I couldn't wait to tell her "I wasn't gay" when she would bring "us" up. I was still sort of seeing a guy from my past and she couldn't stand him. I wanted to be with her, but I didn't want to admit that, not even to myself. I wasn't ready to be different.
She wanted more. She wanted a relationship. She wanted us to be together. She wanted exclusivity. She wanted status. She wanted me to love her publicly. She wanted me to shout it to the world. I couldn't give her any of it. I was afraid. I didn't want to lose my friends. I didn't want to lose my family. I just didn't want my life to change. I wasn't ready for any of it. She loved me, though, and I loved her. But, instead of giving her what she deserved, I let her walk away. She hurt, she cried, and I was to blame for her broken heart. She knew then what it took me over a decade to figure out, and I lost her and Bella with the blink of an eye.
Liz stopped talking to me for a almost a year, and I continued to live my very confused life. I changed jobs, I moved to a different apartment, I was still sort of seeing the same guy, but he and I didn't work out either. I tried another guy and THAT was a total nightmare. While I was trying to get out of the relationship with the wrong guy #2, I met Jenna at work. In time, a work friendship turned into a relationship. Shortly after, I moved in with Jenna. I didn't want to make the same mistakes I made before. I think I just had to prove to myself that I knew I was worth being happy, and if the people around me couldn't handle that, then they just didn't love me.
About a month after living with Jenna, Liz called out of the blue. She asked me what was new and I told her that I was in a relationship with Jenna and that we were living together. She got so upset and cried. She couldn't believe that after all the years of her trying so hard for me to really be with her, that I would just turn around and give everything she wanted out of me to someone I just met. I broke her heart again... but this time, I was convinced the damage was irreversible. She hung up on me, and I never heard from her again.
My relationship with Jenna, I thought, was great, but in reality it was shaky at best. Looking back, I can see we both made a ton of mistakes. She loved me so much the first time around. I loved her too, but the fear of losing my family got the best of me and we ended up splitting up about a year after we got together. Then, we found our way back to each other and continued our relationship for another six years. I had many great times with Jenna, but then there were many dark moments as well. Our relationship was no stranger to emotional or physical abuse, lies, infidelity, or deception. I will never forget Jenna, because with her, I took giant leaps in my personal journey. It was while with her that I finally came out to my friends and family. She gave me the courage to do that and she taught me a lot about life, love, and relationships. In 2009, Jenna and I were expecting our first child. I carried him for nearly six months when he passed away in March of 2010. In June, we lost our second child. This one, she was carrying. We spent a pretty penny in attempts to start a family and all we had to show for it was a life-altering ride on the infertility and child loss train that made me feel so alone... until I found my YouTube family.
Jenna and I broke up in December of 2011. I moved to Orlando to be closer to my mom. She was considering a job transfer to Orlando, so I felt it would be the perfect place to just start over. I got in touch again with my old BFF (the one who was there the night I met Liz.) I found a house for rent on the same block as her mother, and I started my life again at age 35... just me and my three dogs. At this point, it had been over 7 years since I had heard from Liz.
One day, my BFF and I were talking about old times and Liz came up. I googled her and she was nowhere to be found. I knew it would be a waste of time to look for her on social media pages, because she was never into that sort of thing. She was always super cautious about what people could find out online about her because of her career. Liz is probably the only person I know that does not have a facebook. But I did find a few addresses online when I searched her name, none of which were in Florida. When I saw that they were in Massachusetts, I knew I had found the right person. She was from Boston, and she always talked about going back to Boston. I bought a pack of blank note cards and hand wrote a bunch of letters to Liz and Bella asking how they were doing, how the family was doing, etc. I reached out as an old friend trying to get in touch with them. At this point, Liz could have been married with kids. I wasn't looking for her to start a relationship. I had just gotten out of one and I doubted that she would be single too... or even that we would still have any kind of spark left after nearly a decade of not speaking at all. I just wanted my friend back, so I mailed the letters to every address I found online. But, as the weeks passed on, some of the letters came back to me with a big "Undeliverable, forwarding address expired" sticker on them.
All except one...
I checked the mail on May 7, 2012 and there it was. The blue envelope I sent with my letter to Liz and Bella with the same sticker on it... except this time, it had a forwarding address on it as well. The address was in Orlando, about 9 miles away from where I was living. I googled the address and found that the homeowner shared her last name. It had to be a family member, because her last name is not very common. I found him on facebook and sent him a friend request. Fortunately for me, he is affiliated with an organization that has a ton of members and fans, so he isn't one of those types of people who do a ton of screening on his friends. He accepted my friendship right away. And that's when I saw her face.
I recognized her right away. I was mesmerized by her face, and without even trying, a beautiful little 11 year old Bella just took my breath away and made my heart skip a beat. I wrote her a private message asking about her mother and I gave her my phone number in hopes that she would call. I also sent her a friend request. As soon as I hit send, I drove straight to my BFF's house (about 3 miles away) to show her what I had found.
My BFF and I went through the photos in Bella's photo album and I saw a picture of Liz. I found her! I really found her. And as we are sitting there going through photos, my phone rang. I froze for a little too long and missed the call, but I knew it was her. She left a voicemail and gave me her number. She said she was happy to hear from me... so of course, I called her back. She was living in Massachusetts.
Over the next three days, Liz and I clocked about 40 hours of phone time. We were finally in the same place at the same time and we had both recently gotten out of long term relationships. There was no denying the electricity that intensified over the phone. We wanted to be together. The love was there and long distance or not, we made it official just three days later on May 10, 2012. By the end of the May 2012, she moved to Florida and we have been living together ever since. We picked up right where we left off, except now we have both sides of the family supporting us and loving not only us as individuals, but us as a family.
Liz, Bella, and I have now officially been together for a year as of May 10, 2013. I love everything about my life with my girls. As with every family, there are good days and not so good days, but over all, my favorite part of my day is waking up next to the love of my life and helping our daughter get ready for school. We take family vacations together, we enjoy each other's company, and we have turned this house into a home. There is no negative energy in these walls. We are a family.
And that, my friends, is the story of "us" that I am so proud to share with all of you, Today Morning.
On November 30, 2000, I moved to Florida from my beloved city of Chicago. I never wanted to leave Chicago, but my family moved in June of the same year and I just couldn't be so far away from them. Reluctantly, at the age of 23, I packed up my belongings and moved. It wasn't easy. I left a boyfriend, great friends, cousins, and a killer salsa scene behind. The transition was awful. West Palm Beach, Florida was incredibly 'slow' for my liking. When I first arrived, I expected to see a horse drawn carriage trotting down the street. I was a city girl and I loved the fast pace of the big city life. Florida just didn't feel like "home" to me. I spent New Year's Eve alone that year in my mother's home crying in the bottom bunk of my brothers' bedroom just fantasizing about what all of my friends were doing up North. I refused to bring the New Year in with a bunch of old strangers (my mother's friends.)
Fast forward to January, 2001. I took two trips back to Chicago between December and January, and quickly realized that life in Florida wasn't entirely that bad. Florida was a really beautiful state. I signed up with several online social media sites to try to make new friends, specifically those in the 'salsa scene.' At the time, my options were limited. There was no facebook or myspace... just migente.com, yahoo groups, and I can't remember the name of the salsa website that allowed you to browse through potential dance partners, but I had a profile there too. I was determined to make this Florida thing work out... well, I was at least open to giving it a fair chance.
Meanwhile, in Boston MA, a new baby girl was born that month on the 4th. I now call her my beautiful Bellarina. Though I hadn't met them yet, my life story was already being written.
Fast forward a few months... I received news that one of my old roommates from Indiana had moved to Orlando, about 2 hours North of where I lived. Our friendship was on the rocks when I left, but we quickly reconciled. I loved Orlando and she loved South Florida, so we visited each other on the weekends. She had a really flamboyant and crazy male cousin named Barnaby. Oh Barnaby was my buddy. I really, really loved him. He was a great source of quality entertainment and really deserved his own show. I do believe he would have gotten one, but he passed away several years ago. (RIP)
Anyway, during one of my weekends in Orlando, Barnaby took us to Parliament House, a popular gay club in Orlando. I've had lots of gay friends in my life and I've loved them all. Being at a gay club was not weird to me at all. I spent a lot of time in Boys' Town in Chicago gay-club hopping with friends. I knew the night was going to be loads of fun.
Now, pause. I had boyfriends all my life and never even dreamed I would ever end up with a woman. I just wanted to interject that here, so you could visualize the whole experience that night. It's kind of hard to imagine that train of thought now, since I've spent more than a decade of my life knowing the truth and for the most part, hiding my true feelings to my family and close friends. I also have to say that despite of what your religious upbringing may lead you to believe, I was born this way. Some people think that gays and lesbians are influenced by others to choose their sexual orientation. I don't disagree with this statement. Society did play a role in my sexual orientation, although probably not the role you are thinking. During my teenage/early twenties, it was society rules that made me just follow along with what was the 'norm' and date boys. I didn't know I was the only one in my circle of friends who didn't quite feel the butterflies. When the girls in my middle school classes drooled over hot boys, I was still playing with cabbage patch dolls and barbies. Music and dance were more interesting to me at the time than boys, and I was okay with that. But, I did get my first kiss in the 9th grade (something I never admitted to any of my friends because they had theirs in elementary school.) It was okay. No sparks, though. As a cute girl, I had a lot of attention from boys in high school and sure, I accepted them as boyfriends, but all we ever did was hold hands and maybe kiss in the hallway, LOL. I have to chuckle because my first boyfriend and first real boy crush (the one I would have probably agreed to marry) are now both openly gay males. In fact, there are at least 5 guys I dated in my lifetime who are now either openly gay or I suspect are gay. This is a vital piece of information, because they are also very much in tune with their feminine sides, and I can't help but wonder if that was what attracted me so much.
Now that you have that tidbit of information, let's go back to the story.
My BFF, her cousin, and I were at PH dancing the night away. As the night was coming to an end, Barnaby dared me to get a girl's phone number that night. What?! I didn't know how to approach anybody to get a phone number, much less a woman. I was raised to never pursue a man; let them pursue me. So, when it came to trying to get a phone number from a woman - I was a clueless mess. But, I was up for the challenge. I will admit, curiosity got the best of me. But, as I looked around the room, there was nobody who caught my eye... until I saw her... across the room... dancing, drinking, laughing, and having a great time with a group of friends.
Liz.
This is where "our story" begins.
I didn't know how to approach her, so I just sat back and watched her for a while. As the night progressed, she didn't really give me much of a chance to talk to her. She was dancing non-stop. I loved that about her, because I could dance the night away too! I noticed that she took her shoes off at one point and kept dancing. We were getting ready to leave, so I walked up to her circle of friends and lost my nerve. I was starting to walk away, and as I passed by her, I grabbed her shoes and kept on walking out the door.
She noticed that I stole her shoes and followed me out to the parking lot saying "Hey! Those are my shoes!" I threw them into the trunk of my car and said "Really? Prove it!" That's how we started talking. We talked a little bit, quickly exchanged phone numbers, (I returned her shoes) and I went home.
We talked on the phone several times that night and the next day. We made plans to meet for dinner that weekend, and she stood me up!! I went back home to West Palm Beach and never thought we'd speak again. But, she called. As it turns out, she had a girlfriend and lost her nerve. She didn't know what my intentions were. I told her that I was sort of seeing someone as well (a man) and that my intentions were not to start a relationship or even have more than a friendship with her, but looking back, I completely understood where she was coming from... I mean, I didn't think I was interested in her, because she was a woman. But, she intrigued me to the point where we carried on lengthy phone conversations during the week and tried to see each other again the following weekend when I would either go back to Orlando or she would come to West Palm Beach with my BFF to visit me.
I went to visit her. This time, she invited me to her friends' house, where she was temporarily living. I went with my BFF and with her cousin. We hung out for a while and had a nice time, but I honestly did not like any of her friends, and they didn't like me. I was known as the "straight bitch" and they were just a classless bunch of girls who were all living together in a house partying 24:7. We came from completely different worlds and I just felt like she was so different from all of them, I just didn't understand what she was doing there.
As we talked more and more, I learned that she was new in town. She had recently had a baby daugher in Boston, and moved to Orlando to her mother's house. But, because she came out as a lesbian to her mother, the mom kicked her out of the house and kept her baby from her. (Hispanic parents are not easy to come out to.) We left her friends' house that night with all of her belongings. My BFF and I took her to her mother's house and tried our best to help her reconcile with her mother so that she wouldn't miss another minute of her daughter's life.
Bella was so tiny, active, beautiful, smart, vibrant, energetic, talkative, magnetic, and charismatic. All of those things are still true today.
Liz moved back with her mom and we continued our 'friendship'. I was very confused about our relationship. I knew I had feelings for her, but I didn't know what kind of feelings or even what to do with them. She came to visit me in West Palm Beach one weekend and kissed me. Suddenly, my entire life made sense. It was the aha moment of aha moments. At 24 years of age, I finally knew what butterflies in your stomach felt like. I knew what the electric current felt like when fingertips touched. I knew I was finally feeling what all of my friends described they felt when kissing boys, except I was kissing a girl. I was kissing her, and it felt right. It felt perfect.
We had this "thing" for quite a while; years. I spent a lot of time in Orlando visiting Liz and Bella and sometimes, they came to South Florida to visit. Liz was in school and working full time, and there was at least one occasion where Bella stayed the weekend with me in South Florida. Sometimes, the three of us would drive to Tampa to visit my mom. We were inseparable, when we could spend time together. When we couldn't physically be together, Liz and I talked on the phone, but our friendship with partial benefits was not what she wanted or needed. It wasn't enough. Especially since I couldn't wait to tell her "I wasn't gay" when she would bring "us" up. I was still sort of seeing a guy from my past and she couldn't stand him. I wanted to be with her, but I didn't want to admit that, not even to myself. I wasn't ready to be different.
She wanted more. She wanted a relationship. She wanted us to be together. She wanted exclusivity. She wanted status. She wanted me to love her publicly. She wanted me to shout it to the world. I couldn't give her any of it. I was afraid. I didn't want to lose my friends. I didn't want to lose my family. I just didn't want my life to change. I wasn't ready for any of it. She loved me, though, and I loved her. But, instead of giving her what she deserved, I let her walk away. She hurt, she cried, and I was to blame for her broken heart. She knew then what it took me over a decade to figure out, and I lost her and Bella with the blink of an eye.
Liz stopped talking to me for a almost a year, and I continued to live my very confused life. I changed jobs, I moved to a different apartment, I was still sort of seeing the same guy, but he and I didn't work out either. I tried another guy and THAT was a total nightmare. While I was trying to get out of the relationship with the wrong guy #2, I met Jenna at work. In time, a work friendship turned into a relationship. Shortly after, I moved in with Jenna. I didn't want to make the same mistakes I made before. I think I just had to prove to myself that I knew I was worth being happy, and if the people around me couldn't handle that, then they just didn't love me.
About a month after living with Jenna, Liz called out of the blue. She asked me what was new and I told her that I was in a relationship with Jenna and that we were living together. She got so upset and cried. She couldn't believe that after all the years of her trying so hard for me to really be with her, that I would just turn around and give everything she wanted out of me to someone I just met. I broke her heart again... but this time, I was convinced the damage was irreversible. She hung up on me, and I never heard from her again.
My relationship with Jenna, I thought, was great, but in reality it was shaky at best. Looking back, I can see we both made a ton of mistakes. She loved me so much the first time around. I loved her too, but the fear of losing my family got the best of me and we ended up splitting up about a year after we got together. Then, we found our way back to each other and continued our relationship for another six years. I had many great times with Jenna, but then there were many dark moments as well. Our relationship was no stranger to emotional or physical abuse, lies, infidelity, or deception. I will never forget Jenna, because with her, I took giant leaps in my personal journey. It was while with her that I finally came out to my friends and family. She gave me the courage to do that and she taught me a lot about life, love, and relationships. In 2009, Jenna and I were expecting our first child. I carried him for nearly six months when he passed away in March of 2010. In June, we lost our second child. This one, she was carrying. We spent a pretty penny in attempts to start a family and all we had to show for it was a life-altering ride on the infertility and child loss train that made me feel so alone... until I found my YouTube family.
Jenna and I broke up in December of 2011. I moved to Orlando to be closer to my mom. She was considering a job transfer to Orlando, so I felt it would be the perfect place to just start over. I got in touch again with my old BFF (the one who was there the night I met Liz.) I found a house for rent on the same block as her mother, and I started my life again at age 35... just me and my three dogs. At this point, it had been over 7 years since I had heard from Liz.
One day, my BFF and I were talking about old times and Liz came up. I googled her and she was nowhere to be found. I knew it would be a waste of time to look for her on social media pages, because she was never into that sort of thing. She was always super cautious about what people could find out online about her because of her career. Liz is probably the only person I know that does not have a facebook. But I did find a few addresses online when I searched her name, none of which were in Florida. When I saw that they were in Massachusetts, I knew I had found the right person. She was from Boston, and she always talked about going back to Boston. I bought a pack of blank note cards and hand wrote a bunch of letters to Liz and Bella asking how they were doing, how the family was doing, etc. I reached out as an old friend trying to get in touch with them. At this point, Liz could have been married with kids. I wasn't looking for her to start a relationship. I had just gotten out of one and I doubted that she would be single too... or even that we would still have any kind of spark left after nearly a decade of not speaking at all. I just wanted my friend back, so I mailed the letters to every address I found online. But, as the weeks passed on, some of the letters came back to me with a big "Undeliverable, forwarding address expired" sticker on them.
All except one...
I checked the mail on May 7, 2012 and there it was. The blue envelope I sent with my letter to Liz and Bella with the same sticker on it... except this time, it had a forwarding address on it as well. The address was in Orlando, about 9 miles away from where I was living. I googled the address and found that the homeowner shared her last name. It had to be a family member, because her last name is not very common. I found him on facebook and sent him a friend request. Fortunately for me, he is affiliated with an organization that has a ton of members and fans, so he isn't one of those types of people who do a ton of screening on his friends. He accepted my friendship right away. And that's when I saw her face.
I recognized her right away. I was mesmerized by her face, and without even trying, a beautiful little 11 year old Bella just took my breath away and made my heart skip a beat. I wrote her a private message asking about her mother and I gave her my phone number in hopes that she would call. I also sent her a friend request. As soon as I hit send, I drove straight to my BFF's house (about 3 miles away) to show her what I had found.
My BFF and I went through the photos in Bella's photo album and I saw a picture of Liz. I found her! I really found her. And as we are sitting there going through photos, my phone rang. I froze for a little too long and missed the call, but I knew it was her. She left a voicemail and gave me her number. She said she was happy to hear from me... so of course, I called her back. She was living in Massachusetts.
Over the next three days, Liz and I clocked about 40 hours of phone time. We were finally in the same place at the same time and we had both recently gotten out of long term relationships. There was no denying the electricity that intensified over the phone. We wanted to be together. The love was there and long distance or not, we made it official just three days later on May 10, 2012. By the end of the May 2012, she moved to Florida and we have been living together ever since. We picked up right where we left off, except now we have both sides of the family supporting us and loving not only us as individuals, but us as a family.
Liz, Bella, and I have now officially been together for a year as of May 10, 2013. I love everything about my life with my girls. As with every family, there are good days and not so good days, but over all, my favorite part of my day is waking up next to the love of my life and helping our daughter get ready for school. We take family vacations together, we enjoy each other's company, and we have turned this house into a home. There is no negative energy in these walls. We are a family.
And that, my friends, is the story of "us" that I am so proud to share with all of you, Today Morning.
Adorable, love it :)
ReplyDeleteBut you already knew the story... :)
Deleteloved this, I didn't want it to end!!!
ReplyDeleteThe rest is still unwritten. <3
Delete