January 18th.

It's funny, when you really look back, to see just how interconnected things are. Small, minute decisions (deciding to go someplace when you didn't really want to, waking up a half an hour late, etc) can make a huge impact on the course of your life. Some people call it the Butterfly Effect, the idea that a seemingly small thing can create a large reaction (a butterfly fluttering its wings on one side of the world can cause a hurricane on the other). I just tend to call it fate; the universe.

When I first moved back to Bloomington and started embracing my sexuality, I started by reaching out on the Internet. It was a safe haven for me, a place I could really be myself and be saved from a lot of the more obvious judgements on my life. One of the sites I stumbled across (after seeing a sign in the bathroom of the Bistro) was for a bisexual group in Central IL. After perusing, and eventually joining, I met a multitude of interesting, fascinating people. Many of those people I still talk to now and, although I won't "out" them, are still an important part of my life in a variety of different ways.

One of the people I met through my Internet travels was one Miss Amy Lambert. She remains to this day (although we rarely get the chance to interact) a creative powerhouse and one of the people who continues to inspire me so so much to keep writing and getting my voice out there. A few years later, she wrote me an email that would change my life.

That, my friends, is how I met one Jenny Mandel.

It turns out, because of this email, Jenny and I were friends on Facebook for nearly a year without any communication. We saw a year's worth of each other's status messages, of each other's innermost thoughts and feelings, without any back and forth conversation.

Then, one day, the stars lined up in exact perfect formation for that to change. My relationship had just gone down in explicit, flaming fashion and I was reaching out for someone. The person that reached back for me, that fateful day in November, would be the person who would change my life in every possible way.

I am so lucky to be in love with a person who loves me, despite all the hell we went through to get to where we are now. She drove to see me at my first bout as a derby girl, two hours away from where she lived, just to support me (at her own personal emotional cost). She's stuck by me, helped me up when I stumbled, held me when I've cried, dealt with a wealth of emotional bullshit that she didn't deserve... all with grace and tact and dignity.

I am so proud to have been able to love her for a year today. A sometimes tough year, a year of laughter and tears and hugs and a love that I could have never imagined in my wildest dreams.

I am even more lucky that she loves me back.

I've never been one to plan the future. But, looking at her, I see so much. I see marriage, kids, a house with a big backyard. I see laughter and conversation, I see support and strength and unconditional love. I see my soul reflected back in her eyes.

Happy anniversary, Jenny. One down, many more to go.