Love Across the Atlantic

My name is Latrell and I am engaged to Stephen. This is our story. 

I originally went to chat rooms in Yahoo to look for help with math homework and some very poor attempts to do some self repairs to one of my computers. I quickly started checking out some of the military chat rooms, as I am in the National Guard and was interested in what people where saying about the war in Iraq. I met a couple of great people there that I talk to even today whenever I get a chance to see them online; however, it didn't take long for pervs and bots to make me reconsider my time spent in chat rooms. Let me state clearly that I am not against perving and showing and all that, it just is not my cup of tea or what I look for in a chat site. I was well known for having a quote up when ever my cam was on: "No perving please. I don't stand up, don't show and don't watch" or "No horn_dogs_pls".

Without any success these quotes where always on my cam. So I went searching for a new place to chat. After a few minutes in various chatsites I stumbled upon a place called "Meetcam". I spent a lot of time there and met a lot of people there. Among those people was Stephen. He was a long time chatter who had come to a point of wanting more than..well whatever he had found so far...

Shortly after joining Meetcam I gave out a link to my Yahoo 360 page in the main chat of the room I was in. Stephen had a look at the pictures that I had taken on some recent military duty in New Orleans just 5 days after Hurricane Katrina hit there. From there Stephen added me to his 360 page and not much happened at first. At that time I was working at a horrible job at a glass factory and worked some very odd hours, two weeks of days and two weeks of nights and various days. At some point while I was on the night shift meetcam went down for a few days due to technical difficulties. Stephen saw me log onto Yahoo and messaged me to say Meetcam was down. I responded with: "Oh, no problem. I haven't been there in days." 

I got back: "Yeah, it's been noticed that you have not been around." From there Stephen and I never seemed to stop talking. I learned all about his photography, his business building and hosting websites, his children and failed marriage. He learned all about the job I regretted leaving (a job that with Stephen's encouragement I ended up getting back to) and the job I hated going to, my children, my failed marriage, and my struggles to work full time, be a mom and go to school full time. Instant messages turned into phone calls and text messages and him visiting me. 

There are days when I just can’t deal with all that I have on my plate and it's Stephen who reminds me that I am a mom because I love my children, and a student because I want a better life for my children, a soldier because I love my country and that I work full time because it makes all the rest possible. I have never met anyone so supportive and loving in my life. I honestly don’t know how I lived 30 years without him! 

Stephen is from the UK and I am from the States. He has flown across the world to meet me in person. I will never forget that first visit, seeing him across the airport lobby, hugging him for the first time and the way we seemed to end up holding hands without trying or even noticing in some ways. We held hands the entire two-hour drive back to my house. The rest, as they say, is history. We plan to marry as soon as possible.