All the love, none of the drama

It's true, I'm a fan of Twilight. Not a crazed, Twihard who sports a Team Edward shirt and coats herself in sparkly glitter, but I did enjoy the story enough to read it several times and want to see the new movie as soon as it opened. Yes, I know the writing is not the best, but that doesn't really matter because Stephanie Meyer did such a fantastic job weaving the fantasy that you quickly forget that she uses too many adverbs while ignoring sizable plot holes. She created what so many of us want: an escape from our monotonous lives where we too can believe that we are special enough to win the uncompromising love and devotion of the hero.

Of course for me, it's a bit different. I don't read the books so much to escape as to remember how blessed my life is. You see, I am already loved. Bella's story reminds me in some ways of an over-dramatized version of my own.

Let's just look at the similarities--like Edward Cullen, Drew drives too fast. Sadly, he doesn't have the vampire reflexes to avoid a crash when a crazy van lady turns right in front of us. But he does use his very first words to turn and ask me if I'm okay. Only after assuring himself that I'm fine, does he unleash a string of profanities. His concern for me comes before his rage at those who would hurt me--very Edward, yes?

Like the Twilight hero, my Drew gives me expensive gifts like cars, houses and jewelry. When I tell him that I have somehow misplaced my wedding band, he doesn't yell or complain. Instead, he buys me a new one more blinged out than the original. When I change wallets and stumble across the one that I thought I had lost in the change section, Drew just shakes his head and says, "Oh Mellon."

I've never been almost flattened by a runaway van, but there was that one time when a stray cat attacked me. Drew rescued me from the claws and teeth and held my hand while the nurse administered the rabies vaccine by stabbing me in the head with a needle 100 times. Which when you think about it is just as heroic as stopping a moving vehicle with his bare hands.

Sure, Drew may not have composed any lullabies for me, but he knows to cheer me up with a chick flick when I'm feeling blue. He can't hear people's thoughts, but he reads my moods just as well as Jasper could. I only have to release a single irritated sigh and he knows that I need him to come fix some technological item that is making my life difficult. True he doesn't have to constantly battle the urge to drink my blood, but he does refrain from killing me when I tease him on the internet. He may have never had to save me from strangers in a dark alley or sadistic vampires, but he has come home early from work bearing coffee and cake to rescue me from pint-sized demons intent on driving me to the brink of insanity. No, he can't give me the gift of eternal life. But when I was headed down the wrong path, it was him who helped me see that what I truly wanted to do with the one life I do have was teach. Since I sincerely believe that loving one's profession is an avenue to staying forever young at heart, that's a better gift than being turned into a vampire.

So while my life isn't as exciting or fraught with danger as Bella's, I am the star of my own love story. Not to brag or anything, but I think mine is better. I mean, even though I'm sure they've considered it, his brothers haven't actually tried to kill me. So that's a plus. Drew's never left me for my own good either. He might say that's because of the 53 year contract that I made him sign, but I know it's because having him around loving me is what's best for me. So while I enjoy reading about Bella and Edward, I do have to say that they've got nothing on Mellon and Drew.