One Year of Twilight Addiction…and Counting

“Who the fuck is Edward Cullen?!”

One year ago today, those words fell from my mouth. I was on Facebook, perusing the flair application and Edward Cullen’s name kept on coming up repeatedly. Naturally, I was curious. Who was this person that, literally, every other flair was talking about? I hate not being in the know so I asked Audrey.

Pah-freaking-shaw. Apparently, Edward Cullen was the vampire boy of her dreams that was a main character in that Twilight Series she had told me about. Remember? She had just gone to a midnight book thing at Borders for Breaking Dawn? Oh yea, I remember. Vampires and love stories – yea two things my bookshelf could do without.

But as fate would have it I was in Target later that night and there was a stand on -you guessed it – Twilight. I saw the hands cupped around the apple and the title. Well, $6 isn’t going to hurt me, and I respected Audrey’s opinion. I bought the book. Chapter 1 started off kind of meh. I remember starting chapter 2 and then all of a sudden, holy crap it’s 6 o’clock in the morning and I have to be at work in an hour – wtf!!!!

Monday evening I drove to Audrey’s house to pick up New Moon. If you know me, you know that I hate driving. I avoid it at all costs. But I HAD to read it… like, now. I was like Bella in New Moon – I ate, and slept (kind of) and went to work – but there was nothing outside of these books. At work I was useless. The book was always in my lap. I was constantly clapping my hands over my mouth to stop from screaming. When Edward left Bella, I STORMED into Audrey’s office with my face all red “Edward. Is. Being. So. MEAN!” I was livid. Course, by the end of the book,  I was literally bouncing up and down with happiness, but that’s beside the point.

Wednesday was my birthday. Wednesday August 13, 2008. Haha – yes, my birthday = Edward and Bella’s Wedding Day because THAT’S how amazing I am. I was reading Eclipse. I had to run to Audrey’s office a couple of times to squeal with utter delight. Edward and Bella’s bedroom play does that to me, what can I say? I also remember that day because not only did I have to work – which TOTALLY got in the way of my reading, how RUDE – but I had to go to class. I have no idea what went on in that classroom. All I remember was staring the entire THREE AND A HALF hours at Eclipse. It was sitting on the table…tantalizing me. I swear the teacher had organized the desks in a circle specifically to thwart my ability to sneak a peek. I strongly suspect she’s a fan of Jane.

By Thursday I owned all four books because there was no way in hell I could live without reading them again. I read Breaking Dawn – at that time only about 2 weeks old. I was a freaking mess duing Jacob’s book. When Edward calls Jacob outside after he first sees Bella, and Jacob watches Edward just fall to the ground – utterly destroyed, I literally threw the book down. Again, I ran to Audrey’s office. Audrey who understood, who’d been through it all herself. I was utterly convinced that Bella was going to die, and then Edward was going to die and the baby was going to eat half of Forks.

“Honey,” Audrey soothed, “Just…you gotta keep reading. Keep on trucking.” I survived, of course, and I loved it.

I was lucky getting into things this late in the game. Rob Pattinson has always been my Edward, and most of the rest of the cast is who I pictured when I read the books. (For the record – the exceptions were Rosalie and Esme, both are not exactly who I saw) The movie was just around the corner, relatively.

It has been, and I suspect it will continue to be, an amazing experience. I’ve read, on average, about 5 books a month since I was about 9 years old. I’ll be 27 on Thursday. Suffice to say, I’ve read a lot of books, some of them way better than Twilight, technically. But never, in all that time, has a book caused such a physical reaction in me. When I was at work, my hands would literally shake with the effort of holding back my screams of utter delight. When I was at home, I screamed into my pillow. Every touch, every kiss was tantalyzing.

I love this fandom. I love the in jokes. I love, LOVE Rob Pattinson and I utterly adore Kristen Stewart, Kellen Lutz, Ashley Greene, Jackson Rathbone, Peter Facinelli – oh heck, ALL of my Twilight people. I love the fanfiction. I love the diversity – we have everyone from teens to great grandmothers. I love Twi-Guys for being brave enough to love a beautiful love story. I LOVE my Twilight besties and co-owners, Audrey and Mike. I even love arguing with the people who think we’re all ridiculous – because really, their whole issue is with the sparkling which takes up – what, maybe 5 entire pages in the whole series? Mmm hmm.

So here’s to many more years of beautiful, fictional vampires. After all – we still have three movies and Midnight Sun left to obsess over! Thank you Stephenie Meyer, from the bottom of my heart.