An eternal love??

As many of my close friends and family know, I'm a little obsessed with the Twilight Saga books and Stephenie Meyer's books in general. I am a big fan of not only her writing but also her drive as a stay-at-home mom. She's inspired me to start writing a book for myself. I've come up with several ideas about books I'd like to eventually write. Even just stories that may turn into books someday. But she's said that one of the keys to becoming a good writer is to read as much as possible. She said to read everything and anything and especially books that fascinate or intrigue you. So I've started reading various books, anything that looks interesting to me or that I've heard good things about from someone else.

I stumbled across a set of romance novels actually by an author named Lynsay Sands. I've never been a big "romance novel" kind of person. I remember my mom reading some of them growing up with the Fabio-esque men on the front and the peasant woman in his arms. They always looked kind of cheesy to me and I never thought I'd be interested in them. So I was hesitant to give this set of books a chance. But, as usual, once I found out they had vampires in them, I was sold. Ever since reading Twilight, I can't seem to get enough of the vampire novels. I try to avoid anything too racy or grotesque and so far I've done that. I came across these great books on a fluke but I have so far been very impressed with them. Now they are romance novels so there is the occasional, shall we say, moment of passion? I generally skip through those and get to the important stuff. The Argeneau Family is a family of vampires, most of them born that way. They are an enormous family and keeping them all straight is kind of hard sometimes but it's fun to see what happens in their lives.

**Side note: Lynsay Sands has developed this REALLY fascinating theory of how vampires came to be in her world. They were originally from the lost city of Atlantis which was so advanced that they developed a technology to fix the human body from the inside by inserting these "nanos" into the blood stream. These "nanos" bond with the blood and help to heal anything and everything that can cause damage to the body. But unfortunately they didn't realize that the nanos also used up a lot of the blood to repair the body and therefore the people had to have constant transfusions to replace the blood loss. These people essentially became immortal and indestructible. But they needed extra blood to survive which led to blood banks and eventually, after the Fall of Atlantis, vampires were born out of evolution. That is to say, the people with the nanos who survived the fall, adapted to their situation and began turning into vampire-like beings. Their night vision improved, they became faster and stronger and grew extra long canines to feed with. They can be damaged by the sun, which uses up more blood but they can't be burned by it. They can eat garlic and cannot be hurt by crosses. They also can't just be staked in the heart because their body will repair itself. It's really interesting to me.***

Anyway, back to the point of this rant. The vampires in this book believe that every person, vampire or not, has a "lifemate". Someone who they are MEANT to be with. As a vampire, they can recognize their lifemate in several ways. For one thing, they cannot read their mind or control them, which they can do with pretty much everyone else, vamp or not. For another thing, they have an instant connection with them that cannot be broken and my favorite thing-they have a need to be with that person for eternity. They cannot see their lives with anyone else. These books are all about the different members of the family finding their lifemates. Some of their mates are already vampires, others choose to become vampires to be with their mates, in two cases so far, the one mate was turned by the other to save his or her life. It's been really interesting to see what happens with each member of the family.

As I've been reading these, I've wondered if things like this really exist. Yeah, yeah, so I'm a hopeless romantic, we all know that. But I wonder sometimes if for most of us, there is that one person out there for us that we will just click with. It's not that I'm looking for a vampire to fall in love with me and love me for eternity. I just hope someday, in some way, I'll find that kind of love. That love that I can't live without. I've come close to experiencing it before, I know that it exists. I just wonder if, because it's never lasted, it means that there really is that ONE person out there who is looking for me too. Cheesy, I know. But reading romance novels and watching people around me finding their soulmates or that one to love forever, I have to wonder. You would think after everything that has happened, I wouldn't trust, I wouldn't be able to put my heart on the line and in a lot of ways, I'm scared to do that. Terrified in fact. But I know that I don't want to spend my lifetime, my eternity, alone. But I will not settle, I refuse to hurt myself, or anyone, else in that way.

I figure, when the time is right, when I least expect it, he'll show up. Hopefully he won't be a vampire though. I'm not sure my parents would dig that too much.