I want to share with you the story of my first love.

I was in 7th grade and in strings class, remember I play the cello. There were not a lot of us so they would bus the high school kids to the middle school fairly often as to let us play with a bigger group.

And I got to know some of the high school kids. Two guys stand out, stick with me. I swear this is not the story of any man on man action, Terry and Drew. They were junior and a freshman at the time and my poor little brain was thrilled that I could hang with the older kids.

So after a few weeks we had a concert. I say concert because we had more then just family members show. Afterwords while we were packing up, Terry asks if I wanted to try a game. Of course I was game, any time I could rock out with the older kids I was game.

They took me to their friends house where 3 or 4 other people where sitting around, drinking Mountain Dew and playing Magic the Gathering. Before long I was lost in the details of what was going on.

I had dice loaned to me, one of the DM’s jobs is to have group dice, a rule I still carry around with me. A “simple” character made for me. A rogue Kyrterion, (a home brew cat-man). I spent the night sitting around a table with strangers that I now miss and think of fondly often. I can’t even remember all their names. Even though I spent every available night playing Dnd with them. All while they made my little cat mans live miserable for the night. Throwing him down hall ways and into pits to “scout for monsters” More like using me for bait!

Later that night I had to go. But the games then went late into the night and I ended up running 2 miles to my mothers house at 12:30 to get home by my 1:00 curfew. My mother might mock of my nerdy-ness now, but she was very supportive back then and allowed me to stay out as long as I wanted as long as I was with Terry or Drew playing DnD.

I was in love right away. DnD gave me the freedom that I was missing in my home life back then. I lived with my father and my step-bitch(who made my live hell, not step kid hell, child abuse some day I will see here head on a stick in my front yard hell) But all that didn’t matter as long as on the weekends I could go to my mother’s and spend the nights playing DnD and the days watching my brothers do what ever sporting events where in season. My grades improved, if they slipped it was an excuse to ground me away from my mothers house as well as all my chores and whatnot’s around the house.

At some point that first group broke up, people went of to collage or off to get their “real” jobs. My mother had to move for work. Tobril and I started playing. And I became the DM. I got a job at Wendy’s and worked my schedule out to include gaming 2 or more nights a week. And it was a few more years until any thing challenged my love for my game, until I met a girl that later became my wife. And now we spend our nights playing Ddo. I couldn’t be much happier. Both of my loves at my finger tips.

❤