The Best Year

 Laura G 
 

I was in college getting my second degree and working two jobs when a classmate of mine kept raving to me about this show called "Beauty and the Beast..  It sounded really good, so even though I had very little time for TV just then, I tuned in one night. The next thing I knew, I was listening to the most amazing characters quoting "A Tale of Two Cities" and "The Walrus and the Carpenter" within minutes of one another! The show was so smart, so sweet, so romantic; the characters so real and so relatable. I was hooked and reeled in like a baby trout. I watched the rest of the second season, I think I caught some reruns that summer, and then I lost interest in the third season. I watched in reruns for a while, but then eventually it wasn't shown in my market anymore and I forgot about the series as I got married, worked on my career, started a family, etc.

February 2009, the Chiller channel began a BatB marathon. I stumbled across it and was overjoyed (much to my husband's surprise and teenage daughter's chagrin!) to rediscover this wonderful dear old friend of mine. I DVR'd every episode and watched them avidly. I went online and googled my heart out. I read every scrap of fanfiction I could find and bought the DVD's. Eventually I stumbled into the bbtv yahoo group and it was just like coming home to someplace I hadn't been yet.

 In some ways, it's been the best year of my life. (Gee, why does that sound familiar? Hmm?)  I would have told you before that there was 'no way'  I'd ever call someone I met online "my friend" but now I have dozens of them all over the world. These are people I feel like I truly know and love, people who have made me smile, laugh, cry, and who have in every way thoroughly enriched my life. I'll be meeting many of them in person this summer in San Diego and I cannot wait to hug the stuffing out of them. My life was already a happy one, but now it's even better!