verity-burns:Verity Burns &br0-Harry: A Love StoryIn Autumn 2010, I was writing my first Sherloc
verity-burns:Verity Burns &br0-Harry: A Love StoryIn Autumn 2010, I was writing my first Sherlock story, The Road Less Traveled when I received a message from the artist br0-Harry sending me an illustration. I think I would have been blown away however experienced a writer Iwas, but with ‘Road’ being my firststory I was utterly overwhelmed. To see my words brought to life, and in such abrilliant way… it was an incredible feeling. Over the next couple of years I was blessed with more artfrom several wonderful artists, but Harry was always special. He did somefurther illustrations for my stories, and I wrote poems / ficlets to go withsome of his artworks.Eventually, we exchanged real names and addresses; I senthim some locally famous sweets, and he completely outclassed me by sending anincredible water-colour of Cabin Pressure’s Martin Crieff. In 2013 he announced that he was coming to the UK with somefriends, and would I like to meet up? He told me his dates, and I found that Iwould miss him in London by a few days… I offered my apologies. But his groupdecided to tour the country during their visit, spending a couple of days in myarea, and a rendezvous was arranged.We sat opposite each other over a meal in a local pub… andthe table was too wide.That was it. Nothing happened. We spent the entire eveningeach feeling that the table between us was stupidly wide, and then we parted.He flew home a few days later and we didn’t see each other again until thefollowing year. But we talked every day. Officially, we were still ‘just friends’. But as time wentby the elephant in the chat room became too big to ignore, and after a coupleof months there was an inevitable spilling of heartfelt beans. Harry admitted that he had been half in love with me foryears. ‘Love at first chapter’ was how he later described it. His feelings forme were what had given him the final impetus he needed to transition, againsttremendous social and family resistance, after a lifetime of gender dysphoria.But he knew I was married, he assumed happily, so just to meet me was enough –when I couldn’t manage London, it was he who had persuaded his friends totravel further.For myself, I had been deeply unhappy in my marriage forover a decade. But I was raised that divorce is not an option when there arechildren involved, and I had two boys. I’d long planned to leave once myyoungest reached 18, but that was still seven years away… Harry said he wouldwait.As it turned out, things didn’t work out that way. Oncefeelings had been acknowledged, what had been a dreaded obligation for the lastten years became completely intolerable. I could no longer sleep with myhusband.Subsequent months were difficult, and messy. But at the endof them, I was free. Free to follow my heart, which had no doubt of itshome. Our first year as a proper ‘couple’, Harry and I were seldomphysically together, living many hundreds of miles apart. But Skype was ourfriend and we were in each other’s company virtually all of the time. We woke,showered, cooked and ate together; we brushed our teeth at the same time andmore often than not fell asleep with the Skype call still going.Then, a little over a year ago, his ongoing health issues werediagnosed as cancer, and we cut through remaining obstacles with adetermination based on the need to squeeze the maximum amount of ‘right’ into alifetime of ‘wrong’.Since early last December, we were never apart for more thanan occasional hour or two. We got married, we had adventures, we made the mostof every moment of ‘perfect’ that we had found with each other. Two weeks ago, I buried him in his favourite fandom tee,under the shirt he’d been wearing the night we met.My heart is breaking as I write this. He loved me socompletely, I breathed it in every time he exhaled. The air seems too thin now,as if it can barely sustain me.But I cannot feel sorry for myself. Or regret a single oneof the choices he led me to make. He often said that I was his angel;especially as I took over more and more of his personal care. But he saved me. I had given up on love. I wrote about it, but it was afictional thing to me. Soulmates. Pfffft.But I found mine. I found mine. Thank you, Sherlock. -- source link