My GLBT family: How did you meet your significant other?

[HillWilliam]

18. Gawd, CloseUp

I'm so sorry anyone would break your heart. I had to go through a series of really sorry ones before I met Rob. The last one before Rob put me in the ER, pretty badly banged up. When I finally got him out of the house and out of my life I swore that was it. For the first time in my life, I was good with ME. If I needed a little string to, uh, keep myself together, that would be fine.

I think in order to find the other half of your soul, you have to be good with the half you got. There's a whole back-story I won't go into here; suffice it to say it took a long time to see what was inside me was alright and worthwhile.

A month later, I ran into Rob. We had met a year before when I was in Ft Lauderdale. He was going through some pretty hard changes and I was still yet to go through my episode in Baton Rouge. He was a doorguard at a club I used to go C&W dancing regularly. One night whilst I was on my way out the door to go home, he just reached out and hugged me. I looked into those blue-and-gold eyes and I absolutely knew that was my husband. I got on my Harley and rode home, thinking how my life was a mess (I had dropped everything to come take care of my dad) and there was no room for a love.

I moved back to Austin, went to work for a company that went out of business in a few months. I got a gig in Baton Rouge and met Gary. Tall, handsome, charming, smooth-talking, two-timing snake. We spent almost a year in tumult that ended up back in Ft Lauderdale. It ended even worse than it had gone. My heart and body couldn't take any more. To Gary's credit, he got himself straightened out after we parted ways. After Katrina, I've never been able to find where he was to see if he was alright.

Yeah, I still care.

When he was finally gone, I ran into Rob again. In the meantime, he had hit the gym and was the most gorgeous muscular leather-clad hunk I'd ever seen. We flirted across the bar for hours and I thought, well damn, he's changed so much he'll never talk to me, but it's fun to flirt. Eventually, he came over and hugged me and shone his soul through those blue-and-gold eyes. That night we tore. It. Up. We began dating and I was so charmed by his gallant manners... in his words, we were both "smitten". Both of us had just gone through a year of pure-dee hell and weren't ready to settle down, but we found we couldn't stay away from each other. Immediately, we were finishing each other's sentences, found we loved and disliked almost exactly the same things (except I will NOT eat black-eye peas LOL.. he hasn't won that one yet! I still can't get him to dance, but hey, we're totally eye-to-eye on everything else.)

Funny thing, I recognized him right off from a year before. It took him a month and a half to realize who I was, that we'd hugged and shared a single kiss a little over a year before. You don't forget that very first kiss.

We just celebrated 16 years. Every day is still like a first date. When he grabs my hand I still just melt.

This is what I wish for you, CloseupReady. Not just "anyone", but your "someone".