Love Stories

[Moonhawk]

We all love it thank you for posting this @Songmistress

 

i found the picture that made me fall for her online that I rated a 10 and our second date picture. The date on the second picture is wrong we had a brand new digital camera and we had not set it up yet

[Timberwolf]

Awesomeness

[Tika]

@Moonhawk your wife has an amazing smile, she's got one of those smiles that just makes you happy looking at it

[fantasymom]

40 minutes ago, Tika said:

@Moonhawk your wife has an amazing smile, she's got one of those smiles that just makes you happy looking at it

I second that

[Timberwolf]

7 hours ago, Tika said:

@Moonhawk your wife has an amazing smile, she's got one of those smiles that just makes you happy looking at it

I third it. And I love how she just makes you happy!

[Songmistress]

On 06/10/2017 at 9:43 AM, Songmistress said:

The thing is, our story is REALLY long; even the Reader's Digest Condensed Version is long.  And, part of the living out of this story is that I don't have as much time (energy or brain functionality) as I used to to sit in front of a screen and type.  But, in a nutshell, in 2003, Jamie was sent an unsolicited book from his book club. He hadn't asked for the book and assumed it was a one off; he had no idea it was part of a much bigger series. He also had no idea what he was in for by choosing to keep the book and read it.  The book was 'Pillars of Creation', most likely the worst and most annoying of Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth Series.

At about the same time, on the other side of the world, my best friend at the time shoved a book called Wizard's First Rule (the first book in the afore mentioned series) in my face and commanded me to read it. I did, and I was hooked.

It needs to be said, I had little life outside of reading.

Jamie read the book, and when he reached the end of it, realised there had to be more to this story, so he started to search out the rest of the books. At the beginning of July of that year, he found the official website for the series, Prophets Inc, and he joined up.

A couple of weeks later I also joined Prophets Inc.  By this time I had devoured all the books in the series that had been written to that point. I got on to the website, initially, just to find out when the next book would be out.  I didn't know much about forums and posting on them. But, like the moth to the flame, yada yada yada, I dived in to the madness all the same.

--------------

I'mma going to stop here for now. I'm going to have to do this in parts. As I say, I'm no longer in a place where I can sit for hours in front of screen.  So...to be continued.

 

 

 

Pt. 2

Now, while I had little life outside reading, the life I did have I had made a right mess of.  Or, life had made a right mess of me. Like many who found a home at PI, I was looking for an escape from reality.  Jamie was no different; he was looking to get away from a mentally and emotionally abusive wife.

My first post on PI was, appropriately, in the welcome forum. Jamie was the first to greet me (and cart my soul off to SoulEx).  I would find out later that he had been immediately drawn to my name: 'Songmistress'. 

The first thing that attracted me to Jamie was his sense of humour. Exquisite and gloriously British. He couldn't have had me more in stiches if he'd been the entire cast of Monty Python, Blackadder and Red Dwarf.  He made me laugh and, my god, how I needed to laugh.

Later, I went on to create a thread for poetry.  Not having an outlet for my music, I resorted to poetry. Some of it was even decent (most of it was shite - I'm a better songwriter than I am a poet).  I invited others to share poems of their own. What began as 'The Songmistress's Poetic Expressions' evolved into 'The Live Poets' Society'.

Jamie was among the little troup of poets who shared verse, and he was my favourite of the group. One, because he had a grasp of what made good poetry (a lot of people didn't). Two, the way he wrote, the words he used, resonated with me.  He wrote dark, ugly things, but in such a beautiful way.  He wrote with passion and imagination and more than a little romance. But, it wasn't soppy. It wasn't predictable. Basically, it was worth the reading.

After a little while, he and I began to chat outside of the board, on IM.  We talked about collaborating on some poems. Turned out that he liked mine as much as I liked his.  We both figured that since we both wrote in styles and themes that, while not identical, complemented each other, together we might come up with something really good.

And, we did.  He'd send me some lines and stanzas. I send him some.  We'd write back and forth like that.  We'd get a piece finished, then one or the other of us would post it on PI. After we had posted one of these collabs, I remarked (aloud...as in, on the board) that we were 'Two Pens, One Heart'.

Before I knew it I had fallen. Shit and double shit! 

-----------------------------------------------------

to be continued....again....

[Timberwolf]

 I'm loving this!  I can't wait for part 3.

[Tika]

 @Songmistress & @Squarepeg

[Squarepeg]

I told you she'd be better at it than me.

[Timberwolf]

You are a great writer as well @Squarepeg.  I love the words you have written that I have been allowed to read over the years.

[Squarepeg]

5 minutes ago, Timberwolf said:

You are a great writer as well @Squarepeg.  I love the words you have written that I have been allowed to read over the years.

Thanks, man, but in this case @Songmistress has a better recall of all the happenings than me. I just remember falling in love with her.

[Timberwolf]

1 minute ago, Squarepeg said:

Thanks, man, but in this case @Songmistress has a better recall of all the happenings than me. I just remember falling in love with her.

LOL, I can totally understand that.  LOL. 

[Tika]

2 minutes ago, Squarepeg said:

Thanks, man, but in this case @Songmistress has a better recall of all the happenings than me. I just remember falling in love with her.

See that in itself is just as nice.

[Songmistress]

10 hours ago, Squarepeg said:

Thanks, man, but in this case @Songmistress has a better recall of all the happenings than me. I just remember falling in love with her.

I have a painfully long memory is all.  And, I suppose, really, that's all that's important: that we fell in love with each other and, against all the things against us, we are still together. 

As I say, most people have a fairytale life - it's just that it isn't the Disney-fied, sanitised version; it's more the Brothers Grimm sort.  Magic and romance and chivalry, it's all there. But, so is the great darkness, the evil. And, in real fairytales, as in faery itself, the characters do not get to come out of their stories unscathed. There are no scar-free tales.

 

Pt 3:

If life teaches us anything it's that there are no happily ever afters. Happiness doesn't work like that. Life doesn't work like that. We only ever get glimpses and moments. Glimpses and moments of happiness.  They are rare, they are precious. And, without them, this existence would be truly, horrifically, undeniably unbearable. 

Unbearable. That's how things were getting to be for me back when I realised I was in love with a man who lived 4000 miles and an ocean away from me.  The distance really didn't bother me, though. At this point, I was super ignorant of the hell called The Home Office and Immigration which awaited us. That was a nightmare I never even imagined.  No, at this point I was simply distraught because I'd, stupidly, fallen in love with a man I thought was unavailable because he was married.

Jamie is good at burying things. He didn't tell ANYONE how miserable he was in his marriage or how much mistreatment he had suffered from his then wife. On the board, we all knew Jamie was married, and he never let on that there was anything seriously wrong with the relationship.  I just figured that this was a case of me wanting something there was absolutely no way I could have. And, I certainly didn't know that he felt anything for me other than friendship.  Now, I have attracted quite a few miserable married men in my long existence. If they were unhappy in their marriages, they'd tell me, in great detail, how much they were being neglected by their wives, how they wished their wives were like me.  I heard nary a word or the hint of a word like that from Jamie.  I didn't know that he went on holiday and was sad because he was missing me.  Or, that he'd gone on a stag night and felt guilty for the things he got up to with the lads, not because of HER, but because of ME.  I hadn't a clue, because all I was certain of from him was friendship.

I was sure that he did care. So much so that, when it was clear I was struggling with depression, he sent me a long letter to tell me about his sister who had suffered with depression, It was evident that he knew it was a serious thing, and I could tell that he was genuinely concerned for my well-being.  I responded. I don't remember much of what I said other than that, at some point, I said, 'and, I guess I should just go ahead and say it: I love you.'

I didn't know what he would do with that. I said it in despair. It was an 'I'm so so so sorry. I know this is tragic, please forgive me, I can't help myself, but I love you.'   But, I HAD to say it.  It ended up he convinced himself that I meant I loved him just as a friend. 

Now, 14 years have gone by since all this happened. A lot of the timeline gets hazy, So, I'm going to leave out quite a lot that happened - basically for clarity.  What went down was, well, me.  My mental state took a huge nose dive. I went to bed, stopped eating, and waited to die. I avoided the board. I just avoided being online. I slept as much as I could. I'd had enough of breathing. It was excruciating.

I don't know how long my absense was from the board and from the net.  I didn't care. About anything. I'd been tired my whole life. I'd always longed for death.  I had failed at suicide before, so I didn't 'try anything' again. Honestly, I was too tired to do anything. I got up to go to the toilet because I didn't want to sleep in my own piss, but then I went back to bed. The weariness I felt, the failure at marriage and being a mother, the inability to take care of myself and having to depend on Dana (the one who gave me the book) to take care of me...it was all too much. I'd lived 29 long years. And, it was 29 years too long. And, then, on top of it all, to compound matters even more, I was in love with a married man I could never have! A man I could only feel in my dreams.

In the years since that time, I have had many times to be so very angry, to be furious, to be justifiably enraged at the fucking cruel bastard that is life. But, at that point, I was too worn and beaten down and exhausted to be angry. All I knew was a black fatigue and that it, literally, hurt to breathe in and out.

-------------

to be continued....

 

 

[Squarepeg]

31 minutes ago, Songmistress said:

 

I don't know how long my absense was from the board and from the net.

Three days. Three very scary, painful days. I was going to call the police in Florida!

[Tika]

Cliffhanger....  next part please!

[Songmistress]

8 hours ago, Tika said:

Cliffhanger....  next part please!

She doesn't get eaten by the eels at this time.

[hirondelle]

I'm on the edge of my seat.

[Timberwolf]

1 hour ago, hirondelle said:

I'm on the edge of my seat.

So am I!

[fantasymom]

On 10/8/2017 at 4:48 AM, Tika said:

See that in itself is just as nice.

Agreed! 

[Songmistress]

@Squarepeg, maybe you should take over telling a bit of the story now, just because the rest of this week is not going to allow me any brain space to get in here and write it.  Otherwise, peeps are just going to have to wait until I can get back to it.

[Kethlia]

@Songmistress your words and time are precious to us. Thank you for sharing so much with us this far even those which were shared before NL.  We will wait, patiently, with love, with care, we will wait because @Squarepeg is waiting with you to tell this real life love story.  Unlike fairytales our love stories take time to know, enjoy, worry over and hold our breaths for the next part.  We'll be here for that moment when the story is up to date if you so wish to share that much with us.  Because my favorite part to your story is that it hasn't ended. Thanks both of you.  You're a wonderful fairy tale of your own together.

Edited October 10, 2017 by Kethlia

[fantasymom]

19 hours ago, Kethlia said:

Because my favorite part to your story is that it hasn't ended. 

yes, this! ~points up~

[Squarepeg]

I'll add a little bit. This isn't part 4, just a brief aside.

She scared the crap out of me when she disappeared for three days. I was worried sick. I'd spend each night on the computer sending her messages, hoping beyond hope that she would respond and each time she didn't I became more and more scared. I did seriously consider contacting the police in Florida to go and check on her, I didn't know what else to do! But, that never happened, because on the fourth night of trying to get a response she finally answered me. The relief was like a physical blow to my heart and lungs. And, I'm not ashamed to say, there were tears.

Her room mate, Dana, managed to get her back online by telling her something I only realised after seeing her IM message to me after her absence. He told her to get back online  because I loved her and I missed her. Very astute is Dana.

As Autumn said in her last post, the timeline is pretty hazy now, and I can't remember exactly when it was I told her that I was in love with her, but it was coming up to the time when I asked her something spontaneously, though from the heart. I sent her a message over IM that would change both our lives forever and start rolling not a ball, but a big fucking boulder. I asked her to marry me.

[Tika]

I love that we're getting the story from both of you.  I love you guys @Squarepeg & @Songmistress