ericcoleman | A year.

About three or so years ago I met this lovely young woman, she was walking with Alyse and Evan at a con. My first thought was "wow, she is really cute ... oh well". Yeah, I'm like that.

I would see her occasionally at cons. She was very high energy, something I can certainly understand. And yeah, very cute.

I never thought about it much, I did bring her up to Alyse a couple of times, trying to find out a little more about her.

Then I heard her sing. One night in circle she sang the theme to some anime that I didn't know. Didn't matter, there was that glorious voice. I had been writing some more serious music, stuff that wasn't going to work with my solo stuff. I knew I was not the singer for these songs, and I most certainly wasn't the lyricist. I heard the voice I was looking for that night.

I turned around and said "you and I have to talk". She thought she had offended me. Later in the hall I told her my idea for a band, more fanciful, prettier. I wanted to be the instrumentalist again. The original idea was for another friend of mine to be the lyricist, but that didn't work out.

Some time later Lizzie showed me some of her stories. I knew who the lyricist was then.

Two years ago at Musecon the folks in the room were Xap, Lizzie, Jared and myself. Friday night Lizzie and I talked for a couple hours. Saturday night I retreated up to the room for a bite to eat and Lizzie followed. As she says, she hit me with a fish that night, a very large fish. "You aren't getting it are you? I find you attractive." The idea was wonderful and terrifying. There were problems, nothing major but at least one that could make things go bad. We went ahead anyway. We met up at Strowlerfest a month later, spent our first weekend together. It was magic. I texted her to let her know I was in the room, about 6 months later she appeared at the door (ok, it may have only been about 10 minutes, it seemed like 6 months). I will never forget opening the door of the room to this vision of loveliness.

We would venture out for music and food occasionally (poor Heather, she got the brunt of it at one point), but mostly we stayed in that room. We talked and talked. Went all the places you really aren't supposed to go that first night together. But we both had decided already that we had to be completely honest. Let the other know exactly who we were. There were still things left out, but by the end of the year there were no secrets left. We knew.

By the end of the weekend we both knew we were in trouble. The idea in both of our heads had been we would date for awhile. It wouldn't last. It would be lovely.

We wrote Widows Garden Saturday afternoon. And that showed us that magic of the still unnamed band.

I'm sure Susie can tell you how I looked on the drive home (I had met her in Kansas City).

By the end of the year we were starting to work on how to make this permanent. She had met and fallen for the kids and they for her. I spent a week with her around New Years. That was then she said that we couldn't wait a year, the original idea, that she was going to move to Iowa that March. Yes.

I took the bus to Chicago the day before her birthday. On her birthday we went to see Flogging Molly (they were astounding). The next day a bunch of friends showed up and we loaded up the truck. By then we had written a half dozen or so songs. We were finishing each others sentences. We continued to have those "oh yeah, me too" moments (which we still have).

As I have said, we had a quiet little civil ceremony in April, for the various legal things, mostly because she needed insurance. It was lovely, she made the judge tear up.

A year ago we stood up in front of our family, chosen and otherwise for the real moment. The ceremony was filled with seriousness and silliness. My evil twin Charles performed the ceremony (it's ok, I'm the evil twin too). My kids were all in the ceremony. WSPA-3 was the flower girl, Jared the ring bearer (he had the best joke of the day, his idea too) and Ian stood up for me. We are still overwhelmed at how many showed up.

The last year has been building our home together. We found this marvelous house, an old, mildly beat up Iowa A-frame. We had been in it for 5 minutes when we started working out who got which rooms. It is most decidedly a house where geeks live. It is most decidedly a house where artists live. It is full of love and fun and craziness.

I thought I was done. I figured that I had had my run, the rest of my life would be getting my kids off to a start, playing music, living alone.

This lovely maniac took over my life, made it better than I could ever imagine.

One year ago today we stood in front of our friends and declared our love for everyone to see. Not that we didn't do that all the time already.

My Lizzie, my love. This is the best time of my life and that is because it is now our life. Happy Anniversary.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

scifantasy.livejournal.com

Happy anniversary, both of you. Congratulations.

billroper

Congratulations!

ntrlstgrl.livejournal.com

LOVE THIS!!!!!!

It's simply fabulous seeing you so happy, and I love having Lizzie around. She's a treasure!!!

lizziecrowe.livejournal.com

*MERP*

I can only say that this is the happiest I have ever been, my love. I didn't know that I could be this happy. I had resigned myself to contentment and to write about the love stories of others. I didn't think men like you existed. I thought I had simply made-up my ideal for a fan-fiction installment one day and that I would simply have to live with that.

then you went and turned my whole world upside down and inside out. Thank you, my love. Happy Anniversary.