My name is Cory Monteith, and I'm a lucky guy.
I'm living a pretty good life right now. Still on a hit television show, even after graduating with the rest of the "seniors." Still in my band, Bonnie Dune, recording music and playing sold-out concerts in small venues. Still in a relationship with a living, breathing woman… Ms. Lea Michele. As an added bonus, I just became a first time homeowner… I hold the keys to a respectable condo in Vancouver, not all too far away from my mom's house. At 30 years old, for the first time in my life, I can say with the most certainty that this is the happiest that I've ever been and the best things have really ever gone for me.
Back in my real high school (which wasn't anything like WMHS, let's make that very clear)… well, at least my first year of it, whenever I managed to show up… if people would have said that I would have become something more than a gas station attendant or a busboy at a restaurant, I would have laughed whole-heartedly in your face. Growing up, to say that I was messed up is a complete understatement. The drug use, the drinking, all of the running away from home and not going back for days… I wasn't an ideal son, or really even a good citizen to the wonderful Vancouver. It really took this deep intervention to shake me to my core to clean me up. But anyway, I don't want to get too dark with you. That would just make us all sad.
I guess this lucky streak really started after that week in La Jolla last summer. This week with my great friends really just jump-started everything. Lea probably told the story a million times by now, on how we really got started. I like to blame the sleeping arrangements the most out of anything. I've always had a thing for Lea. How could you not, with her incredible personality and upbeat attitude about life? She was the firecracker under my ass that just lit me up. It's one thing when you work with someone and travel with them and everything like that, or even just hang out with them in events completely unrelated to work. But, when you're lying next to someone in a darkened room, and you're both in a completely vulnerable state before drifting off to sleep, you really form this cool bond with someone. You learn their little quirks… like, for example, Lea always falls asleep lying on her left side, but she'll always wake up on her stomach. Or, another example, when she's in that really deep sleep in the middle of the night, she lets out these tiny, petite snores that you can only really hear if you're right next to her. I'll never tell her she snores, though. She'd probably get really embarrassed and I wouldn't want her to be self-conscious when she sleeps. But those nights that we spent in bed together… those were the game changers. And now we've been together for just about a year.
After we got home from La Jolla last year, it took us two weeks to sort things through before we decided to move in together. We rented our own apartment. She couldn't live at my place because I had three roommates, and she didn't want me to move into her place because she said it would be too small for two people. We're happy in our place together. It isn't far from work, and it's out of the way enough that people really don't bother us now. But, shit, we were hawked for months after we came out as a legit couple. Paparazzi were everywhere, and every fan we met either loved and worshipped us together as Monchele, or they hated our guts. While the paparazzi thing was annoying, we really didn't get tired of all of the fan reactions. They just got crazier, and sometimes, creepier, so it kept things lively.
Let me be clear here, we are two regular people with real emotions, issues, and problems. Things between us haven't always been easy… for a month or two, we really went through this rough patch that made us question if we really had what it took to be together. It gets complicated when you live together. You can't just stand up, say goodbye, and walk out. You really have nowhere to go, especially without a suitcase of clothes or anything like that. Going through that time, though, really showed us that if we could work through that, we could really work through anything. That's another thing that I love about Lea. She doesn't quit. If she wants something, she'll fight for it. And trust me, she fought.
All in all, there really aren't too many things to look at in my life and go, "Wow, you have to deal with that? That really sucks." And honestly, a lot of credit really goes to Lea. People always say that when you know, you know. When everything clicks and falls into place, it just feels right. Whenever I'm around her, whether we're in our little apartment or at our special place on the beach that we try to visit once a month when things get too crazy, I feel like I'm completely at peace and at home. With all of this said, there's a question I need to ask her… really, one that I've been dying to ask her for a long time now. But why jump to that part when telling our story is just so much fun? There's a lot people don't know about her, or us for that matter, and I think it's time for people to know why I love that woman so much. Our journey doesn't start or end with these stories, but the stories only make the journey richer and fuller.
Hold on tight, people, here are the ten reasons why I love Lea Michele Sarfati, and the ten reasons why I want to marry Lea Michele Sarfati.