The REAL Letter to Ellen...

I had to condense my original letter which was pretty nice, down to 1500 words or fewer, that includes spaces! So...Here is the abridged version that I actually did send to Ellen today. There was a "Dear Ellen" at the top, but I had to cut it! LOL

Four years ago, I had it all. When the economy went down it took me with it, my home, my business, everything. Since then, I have fallen in love and become engaged to a wonderful woman, Caroline. She lives in England, and I am in California. She can’t live here legally, but I can go there. I am working hard to make that happen, and although things are tough, I have received a lot of help from my friends.

Elizabeth has let me live in her home, and sacrificed half her garage to let me have a work-shop for the past year and a half RENT FREE, and I feel my debt to her is enormous. I often think “there but for the grace of god go I” when I see homeless people.

Tauni spent $600 on veterinary care for my dog Winston, to get him what he needs to be able to travel to the UK without being quarantined for 6 months. She has also hired me to do some work for her, and insisted on paying when I’d have done it for nothing.

Faye and Sarah have sent me $200 American cash, through the post from England so that I could get my passport application in, and I never asked them for a thing. They are both currently unemployed, and with two kids, six cats, and a dog, it might as well have been $2000!

Even though my life is really hard right now, between Caroline, and my friends, I have never felt so lucky! I am going to find a way to get to Caroline, and marry her, but if you could help me thank the people who’ve given so much to help me, it would be incredible!

Kindest regards, Tracy

The 5th C

Some of you may recall, or may have to go back and read my post about The Four C's. These were determined by a very happy long-term couple I know, as the key ingredients to a successful relationship. They are Communication, Compatibility, Chemistry and Comedy. I have met my match, and her name is Caroline.

It was exactly one year ago today that I met the woman with whom I plan to spend the rest of my life. Well, technically we didn't really meet. We had been interacting, checking each other out, looking through pictures, and flirting on facebook for a bit, when on this day, the 4th of August, we both decided we wanted something more. We began a simultaneous pursuit, we both seemed to feel this pull, or push, or some kind of force driving us toward each other. It was the beginning of the serious 'let's get to know each other' phase. I like to think that we both knew that the other was destined to become important in our lives.

Although we are having a hell of time merging our lives, it is a fight we are both fully invested in, and we will not stop until our goal of marrying, and living together full time, is achieved.

Our story: We met on facebook playing a game called Mafia Wars. We both joined a group that was created to help gay people who play MW meet and support one another. We were both fairly new to the game and were trying to invite as many people as we could to join our mafias, to try to reach the magic number of 501. I noticed her profile picture, and went to her page to check her out. She was definitely cute, and her status was "in a relationship". Awww.... too bad.

A few weeks later, she posted pictures of a new tattoo she'd gotten, a tramp stamp, my favorite! She took the photo in a mirror, in her underwear, so you could see the tatt. I clicked on the picture, again drawn to the eye candy...I clicked through her photos, she was so my type! Then I got to her profile, and her status had changed to "single". My heart skipped a beat. I didn't think about the fact that she lived in another country and we had an ocean between us. I immediately went back to the picture of the tattoo and the adorable butt, and left a comment about how nice it was, and how I liked the tattoo as well. There was a period of flirting that followed, and she seemed very keen on returning my attention. I had started a second account, so I flirted with that one too, and even though I hadn't tried to hide the fact that both were me, she didn't seem to realize it at first, and she was not as flirtatious with the other me, which made the real me pretty happy. Do you follow?

Finally the day arrived that we began to inbox, and exchanged emails and began the real process of getting to know each other better. Since then, we've laughed a lot, determined in person that our chemistry online was not limited to cyberspace, discovered how much we have in common, and that we can work through difficult issues. We've enjoyed over 623 Skype hours, 3419 emails 655 text messages, a bunch of IM's and phone calls, and here we are, more in love than ever! Happy Anniversary Baby!