in the coming days...

ONCE UPON A TIME

Once upon a time there was a girl named Christie. She was a happy girl. But there was a hole in her heart. She was missing something. She had a cat named Mollie, who was her whole world. Her family. She had parents too, but she was a grown woman now. She wanted more than that. She wanted her own family. She wanted... she needed, love. True love. Love in the human form. Love that fairytales were made of. Love that transcended all meaning. Love that is everlasting. She looked and looked for 8 long years. But nothing. She had finally realized who she was and who she was meant to be with. It was not who she thought she was end up with. All her friends married boys. She grew up thinking she’d meet a boy in college or maybe shortly after. She dated two such boys in these capacities but they broke her heart. She mended it back, and then she realized who she was really meant to love…and it was not a boy. It was a girl. A woman. So she searched high and low for years. Stepping out of her comfort zone time and time again, but still finding nothing. No connection to anybody. She felt defeated and lost. She gave up. She continued to live her life the way she wanted and did things that made her happy, like taking trips and seeing her favorite artists, like her hero Kristin Chenoweth.

She had an upcoming trip to Niagara Falls, Canada. The first time she would be out of the country. She was nervous, but excited nervous. A part of her wanted to meet Ali Liebert, the well-known Canadian TV and Movie star, who she had fell in love with and who has played a lesbian on TV and movies more times than it seems someone who is actually straight, would do. She had written a story of the two of them. Their life together. It was in an alternate universe, since that is the only way something like this could happen. It’s the only way Ali would ever fall for her. Christie wrote an actual letter to the real Ali Liebert last summer. She tried to sound as normal as possible, despite the obvious attraction and feelings she had for her, that could make her sound crazy. What Christie didn’t know was, that there was a girl in Canada for her. And she was going to meet her on this trip. She would find her maybe in the hotel lobby at breakfast. Or maybe out on the streets of the city, or maybe on a tour of the Falls. This woman would be her soulmate. There would be an instant physical attraction, but that would only lead them to talk to each other and discover how much they had in common. How much they both love Lost Girl and Bomb Girls, and girls in general. She would be a confident lesbian. She had girlfriends in the past, but Christie’s zero experience in that area didn’t concern this girl at all. In fact she intrigued her. There was something about Christie that this girl just had to get to the bottom of. Had to know her. Had to know her deep down. They would share a kiss on this trip. Just a kiss. Ok maybe a little feel-up as well, she is a hot-blooded woman for crying out loud. She hadn’t been kissed in over 8 years and she was dying for that level on intimacy from someone who understood her and cared about her and generally wanted to know everything there is to know about her. She wanted someone who craves to know another human being. Someone who wants to take the time to listen and ask questions, but who also is willing to share herself in that way too. To share her life with Christie. What has happened, who she is and where she plans on going. They talked for hours and when her vacation was over, they exchanged information, phone numbers/emails. They would see each other again. Real soon. It wasn’t goodbye forever. They were going to be in each other’s lives for a very very long time.

I am Christie. I am the author of this story. I am writing it into existence. Because sometimes life can imitate fiction. All the movies out there “Based on a true story” prove this. All those things happened, and they were good enough to make into a movie. My story could be made into a movie. Sure little things change here and there when you make a movie, but in the end, the big moments, the big picture, that doesn’t change. That is the heart of the story, why it was made into a movie in the first place. And the heart of my story is meeting someone that will change my life. That comes in and shows me that I can be loved in that way. I am pretty enough to be desired by another real, live human being. That I deserve intimacy from another human. Real intimacy. Intimacy in the emotional sense but also paired with the physical sense. That these desires and longings aren’t fiction. They aren’t fairytales that don’t come true. They are the non-fiction stories, they are the “based on true events” movie scripts. Why would I subconsciously choose to write all those letters starting when I was 16, to a future “husband” (turned future “love” and then turned future wife)? Why would I even write those and seal them away in a taped up shoe box years ago, if I wasn’t supposed to give them to anyone? I’ve been tempted over the years to open them up and read them, but I won’t. I can’t. They are not meant for me. I don’t even want to be tempted. I keep the original taped up box at my parents house. I have a newer one at mine, from the last 5 years or so. It’s been a long time since I’ve written one, but it doesn’t mean I won’t write more. I’m afraid if I had the box opened and not taped up, I would tear them all in pieces in a moment of complete and utter desperation and loneliness. When I’ve hit rock bottom and couldn’t stand one more minute of that isolation and despair. Those letters contain my deepest desires, but they also contain who I was at different stages of my life. They contain what I was feeling at age 16, or 21, or 30. They contain the deepest parts of me and show that no matter how I’ve grown or changed and learned and developed over the years, into a woman who knows who she is, what she wants and that she is worthy of love, one thing remains the same. The desire. The longing. The need to be held and kissed and loved fully by another being on this planet. Not that she would be perfect, or that I would be perfect. I don’t expect that. Just love. Just a willingness to try and work on us and ourselves individually. To not give up. To not enter commitment lightly, to be sure. To love when it feels impossible. I realize I can’t control what another person does. I can’t control that. I can only control me. But I won’t give up without a fight.

And Christie didn’t give up without a fight. She went into this trip to Canada, a magical place where the country anthem is “friendliness,” with her head held high. She was open and responsive to those around her. She would never give up. She would always try. She couldn’t control the story, but it’s always fun to try and pretend you can. Like it’s a script for a movie. A storyline for a show. The tagline reads: “Christie, a 30 something single woman finds love, in the most unbelievable of places…right in front of her face.”