I have never made a secret of the fact that I am a geek. I love sci fi, fantasy, tech, and anything that requires imagination. I started on Star Trek early, watching episodes with my father. I made my way through Tolkien, going so far as to dabble in Sindarin and writing in tengwar. If it had anything to do with created worlds, possible futures, or swords, I was pretty much into it. It comes as a surprise even to me, then, that I did not touch video games until college. We didn’t even have cable growing up, so there was no Nintendo in the house. College was my first real exposure to console games (or most computer games, for that matter). I was terrible at them. Mario Kart could bring me to tears of frustration.

I am happy to report that I will be marrying a gamer in a few months, and my tide has finally turned. After several rage-inducing attempts at Little Big Planet, and plenty of marveling at my fiancé’s work with Assassin’s Creed, Bioshock, and Skyrim, I have finally purchased and played—to conclusion!—my first video game. I’m not even ashamed to admit that it was LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean. It was partly frustrating but totally gratifying. I am 28 years old, and my proudest accomplishment of 2012 has been playing a video game to 100%.

And I am very okay with that.