How Twilight Ruined My Life.... Well...at least my ability to ever date again.

I love to read.  I’ve been an avid reader since I was very young.  If you ask my mother, she will tell you I learned to read at age 2 ½.  I’m not entirely sure that’s true…but my dad’s faulty memory about the specifics of my childhood leaves him unable to corroborate or deny her claim.  I love books; all kinds of books.  Except self-help books….good grief!!  How can anyone get through those???  I mean, I’m sure I’d really like to know all the ways to be a really successful person or maximize my relationship potential.  It just turns out that I have a genetic disorder that makes me fall asleep after reading one page of a self-help book.  Maybe someone could write a self-help book about how to read self-help books…?   I need dialogue...lots and lots of dialogue.  In fact, my favorite books are ones that start out mid-conversation.  Could someone please write a self-help book that is composed entirely of dialogue?  I’d read that.

Anyway.  There have been a few times in my life when I have come across books that I just HAD to read more than once.  It hasn’t happened very often, but it has happened.  

And then….

I bought a movie called “Twilight.”

My Twilight Soundtrack piano music and a bracelet the Peanut got

The media made a big hype about this teenage vampire movie and showed all these clips of really pretty actors starring in said movie.  Well, I happen to like semi-supernatural books and movies so it caught my attention.  On an impulse at Target one day, I saw this “Twilight” movie on an end-cap in the movie section so I just grabbed it and tossed it in the cart.  That night, I watched it…and really liked it.  It was a great true love story.   SO….for Mother’s Day, my daughters asked me what I wanted and I said that I’d like the Twilight book.  I received that and the sequel, New Moon, as my gifts.  (For those of you who have been living in caves or under rocks the past few years, The Twilight Saga is a series of four books by a writer named Stephenie Meyer.)  

I must have started reading Twilight five or six times but never got past the first few pages because, well, I’m a single mom who, at the time, was also a full time college student.  Then, over a school break, I picked it up again and started over from the beginning.  I read the whole thing….in two days.  I immediately moved on to reading New Moon and devoured that one in like 36 hours.  A trip to Target to purchase the 3^rd and 4^th books occurred the moment I realized (1/2 way through New Moon) that I would not rest until I’d read them all.  

I barely slept, forgot to eat, would have forgotten to feed my children had they not been such persistent little boogers, and got exceedingly frustrated that I could not read AND drive at the same time for the three days it took me to read the last two books.

And wouldn’t you know… The MOMENT I finished the last book, I picked up the first one and started the process over again immediately.  Obsessive?  Most definitely.  Irrational?  Probably.  Do I care?  Not so much.  

It’s a fantastical story about two people who are designed by nature for each other.  There isn’t anything that could keep them apart…even when one of them tried to leave to protect the other one.  They were inexplicably drawn to each other by a force greater than anything they understood.  Each of them felt unworthy of the utter devotion the other felt towards them.  In the end, their love was a conquering force to be reckoned with.  And yes…there are vampires.  There are werewolves too.  (Okay, okay…to the Twi-hards, I know that last sentence was inaccurate but I don’t want to give spoilers in case someone decides to read them based on this post.)  If we’re going to get all technical…the books were written for “Young Adults” too…and I’m almost 33.  Again, ask me if I care.  I don’t.

So, now that you know my story of how I became a lover of all things Twilight, I can tell you how it ruined my life.  Well, maybe not my life per se… but definitely my ability to ever successfully date anyone ever again.  Ever.  I mean, if I can’t find someone that I’m intrinsically, serendipitously, uninhibitedly connected to at first sight, I might as well give up and go home.  Right?  *Sigh….*   Twilight showed me all that was lacking in my expectations of men.  I thought all you had to do was find someone moderately attractive, get along with them most of the time, and tolerate each other’s families.  Turns out, my expectations were WAY low.  So now, thanks to these books, I am doomed to a life alone until I find my own personal “Edward” who loves and adores me like I’m his personal “Bella”.  Crap.  I am so screwed.  I hardly believe for one second that such a fantasy man REALLY exists in life.  

It’s hard to explain how those four books changed my life.  I really don’t know how to accurately convey through words what it did to my heart.    In the mean time…I’ll just read all four books for the 11^th time.  Yes, you read that right.  I’ve read them already 10 times.  All of them.  Like I said…obsessed?  Definitely.  Do I care?  Nope.  It’s currently the only romance in my life and I’m good with that…until my Edward comes along that is.