It has been a long time since I have posted anything in FanFiction. I still get a review now and then to remind me that once upon a time I was quite prolific here, and it makes me want to write something new, but at this point in my life, it is difficult to find the time to sit down and write. I remember once hearing of a prolific writer who was asked, "How do you write so many novels?" and he answered something along the lines of "You put your ass in a chair and keep it there for a long, long time."
These days I just can't seem to find the time to put my ass in a chair for a long, long time. Too many other things going on! Maybe in the New Year I'll be able to make (and keep?) a Resolution to re-prioritize my life so that there will be more time for writing, because I still have so many stories I want to tell!
And here is one of them. As I said, I still get a review now and then, and a couple of recent reviews on my two previous Lizzie McGuire Christmas stories made me realize that this group is incomplete. It is a great literary tradition that things should happen in threes: Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks and the Three Bears (too hot, too cold…just right!), the granting of three wishes, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, the Three Stooges! And even Ebenezer Scrooge, on Christmas Eve, is visited by three ghosts. So I felt this set of Christmas stories needed one more. There is a story about Lizzie and Gordo as children, one when they are teenagers, and now here is one with them as adults.
For right now, I'm posting only the first section, just to let you know I'm still here, and there will be more. I have never begun a Lizzie McGuire FanFiction I haven't finished, and by the Grace of God, I don't intend to do that now. There will be more, over the next several days before Christmas. But in the meantime, enjoy the beginning of Lizzie's Wonderful Life-even though it is not quite so enjoyable at the beginning, but I promise it will get better, and it will be LG of the highest degree!
"No, no, you go ahead," Lizzie said, standing in the doorway, wishing they would leave already, but more than that, wishing she didn't feel so antisocial towards the two people who were being so extremely nice to her in this, her hour of need. "I'll be just fine," she added, trying a smile, but not sure if she was really pulling it off. "Don't worry about me. Really."
Brandi and Todd stood side by side, their noses pink with the cold, their gloved hands linked, a picture of perfect love, illuminated by the multiple Christmas lights on their front porch.
"Are you sure, Liz?" Brandi asked once again. "C'mon, it will be so much fun! Just the thing to take you out of this funk."
Lizzie shook her head, her grip tightening on the doorknob. "No, really," she repeated. "You go and enjoy yourselves. I think I'll just…watch TV. I'm kind of tired after that long plane ride."
"Well, all right," Todd said. "But if you really want to relax, there's some wine in the fridge. Help yourself."
Lizzie tried to smile again, but it hurt. "Thanks," she said. "Now go on and enjoy your Christmas Pageant."
Reluctantly, the couple turned, leaving their houseguest alone. It was hard enough for Lizzie to see them walking down the driveway together, glove in glove, framed by the beautifully blinking Christmas lights. It was even worse knowing they were going to the Holiday Extravaganza at the elementary school where they both worked as teachers, where they would see their students performing in what was likely to be an unbearably cute rendition of A Christmas Carol.
But worst of all for Lizzie had been hearing her best friend's news on the drive back from the airport earlier that afternoon: Brandi and Todd were pregnant, expecting their first child in mid-July.
And what made that the worst of all? Lizzie had come here, to the safety and security of her old college town, for one reason only: to get away from the inescapable truth that, after last night's heated argument and startling revelations, not only were she and Rex never going to have children of their own, as she had always hoped, but she and Rex no longer even existed as a couple. That truth, it turned out, was not escapable. Her marriage was over.
She shut and locked the door, now alone at last. Truly alone, with the Christmas garland and Christmas wreaths and piles upon piles of pretty presents piled up under the Christmas tree. And that kind of loneliness, loneliness at Christmas, was truly the most unbearable.