
Lisa: It’s that time of year again…to look back at the year, make an assessment of the highs, the lows and decide how to move forward into the future.
I do that every year for better or worse. However, this year, I don’t need to look back because I’m still feeling the sting of all the lows without enough highs to balance them out!
So rather than end this year on a grumpy note, I’m gonna go way back to when the decade was young. On this very day, December 30, in 2000, I met my soulmate.
Online.
Those were the days when the idea of meeting anyone worth knowing online seemed completely absurd. Now, not just online dating, but new online friendships stumbled into seemingly by accident have become a whole lot more normal. Even meeting friends of friends through social media before meeting in person. Y’know, back then, it didn’t even cross my mind to Google the guy before seeing him. Now, that’s standard procedure.
So, here I am on December 30, 2009, nearly a decade after that first meeting after 2 weeks of emails and y’know what? I’m still just as in love—if not more—than I was back then.
(Jen: What Lisa didn’t mention was she wasn’t even looking when her soulmate found her. She’d been dating around, going out, not having a lot of luck finding someone. And she didn’t even really want to. When she got the emails from her soulmate, she was adamant that she still wasn’t looking. That she only wanted to be friends. Isn’t it funny when fate has other plans?)
It was such a whirlwind. I’d come home late after work to an email that knocked my socks off. If that guy was who he claimed to be, he was perfect—the guy I’d been waiting for my entire life! I just ‘knew’ it.
But really? Well, I was sure, but I was also sure that I must’ve gone insane at some point, so I forwarded his emails and mine to Jen. She knows me better than I know myself so when she confirmed that meeting this guy in person wouldn’t be a bad thing…like not at all…like, hurry, do it now before he gets away…and don’t screw this one up!!!!…I figured perhaps maybe if the guy was willing, we could meet in a public place just in case. (Jen: When I read the emails I remember asking Lisa something along the lines of “Did you write these to yourself? It’s like reading an email from the male version of you. You’d better meet him just to find out if he’s your male doppelganger!”)
On first sight, I’d thought my ‘sense’ was wrong. He was too clean cut, I was too ragtag. But then, after we got to talking, six hours went by. Dinner happened and neither of us wanted to say goodbye.
The next night, New Year’s Eve, we had separate plans, but a few days later, we met again and agreed that we should’ve ditched our plans and been with each other. I moved in two weeks later—at his request! I didn’t know that when he said, “Stay here, with me.” He’d meant, “Move in, forever.” I had to go home and get more than a weekend’s worth of underwear!
(Jen: An don’t forget—he had to meet me and my hubby and pass our test as well. On paper—or in emails—he was clearly Lisa’s perfect match. But I needed to be able to meet him, talk with him, look him in the eyes just to make sure. It’s what BFFs do for each other, you know? Within a few minutes of Lisa and her man walking through the door of my house, I knew. Lisa’d found the man she was supposed to be with. Even my hubby was amazed at how different yet how perfect these two are for each other.)
So many people say that we should write our romance into a book, but I’d have to disagree. There was absolutely zero conflict. No social rules to follow, no raving mad inlaws, no kidnapping, no paranormal activity, no accidental time travel, no car trouble or broken- down spaceships, no nothing but us falling in love and staying together.
And in real life, isn’t that the way it should be?
Lisa and Jen have been best friends for over twenty years, and write romances—the kind chock full of juicy conflict—together as Ashleigh Raine. Learn more about them and their books at AshleighRaine.com or pick up their novels here at Samhain Publishing.