It was the winter of 1995. The first song I heard him sing that night in was Rocket off of Siamese Dreams. He had this way of staring at you like you were the only thing that existed. Bright green intensity framed by jet black hair and gorgeous cheekbones.

I had seen him before, we went to the same school. I had felt that stare before but I thought there was no way that stare was meant for me. Besides, I was there that night because I was dating his drummer.

My cousin occasionally played in one of his bands

and called me one day on his behalf. That weekend we went night sledding with my cousin and some of his other band mates. He sat behind me on a sled, spoke something softly into my ear about holding on and I was hooked for the rest of my life.

I spent the next five years consumed by him. It was intense, volatile, mesmerizing, magnetizing… fucking magical. Even time itself bent for us. We could spend hours talking only to realize that a mere hour had passed. I could feel his presence without looking. In a room with a hundred other people, I’d know he was there.

We spent a lot of our alone time listening to Mellon Collie. I could spend a life time running my hands over his gorgeous curves and angles, letting the music speak for us. I used to fantazise about walking down the aisle to the Tonight, Tonight instrumental.

But it was also toxic. The constant push/pull, hot/cold. The fights, the misunderstandings, the other girls. We were so young, such stupid kids. Both out on our own for the first time and I was a trainwreck of undiagnosed CPTSD.

We were the highest highs but also the lowest lows and ,eventually, I needed it to end. Our association ended badly and we went out separate ways like we never knew each other at all.

I stayed friends, and even family, with his band mates whom had become some of my closest and dearest friends over the course of our madness. I dated others who I was find of.I got married and had a family. But I never loved anyone else again.

In 2018, our friend died unexpectedly and it drew us back into the same orbit again. I put on a benefit for our friends daughter with all his old bands reuniting to play in his honor.

I hadn’t seen him in close to twenty years. He was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I could still feel him in the room. I could still feel the tension of not being able to touch him.

I was very unhappily married and, unbeknownst to me, so was he. I eventually broke and reached out to him regarding the second benefit. I had every intention of remaining friendly and proper. I did. But that connection, that undeniable magmatism was still there like a freight train that couldn’t be knocked off course.

I thought it was impossible to change my lot. I had no idea how to escape my marriage, I had settled into the idea that that was what my life was going to be and so did he. But I knew I couldn’t go back to life as I knew it, I was still in love with him after all those years.

So, we moved mountains. We broke the whole world. We did the impossible. We had a million complications thrown at us along the way, not to mention a word wide pandemic, but here we are. Together again where we belong.

He’s an amazing step father to my children, and, as I sit here writing this, our new baby daughter is upstairs dreaming.

Our improbable, miracle baby that was conjured up and born through sheer will and the kind of love that few are ever lucky enough to have.

And The Smashing Pumpkins, especially Mellon Collie, have traveled with us on our journey the whole way.