Kirsten Vangsness Thrives on “Criminal Minds”

As a bonus, Minds has given Vangsness the added security to continue her award-winning career in Los Angeles theater, a departure from the fear she felt when she first discovered acting while a junior high-school student in Orange County, Calif., a painfully shy girl who came out of her shell on the stage.

“I had no illusions whatsoever,” she said. “I knew I would be living on cat food … but I knew I was going to be an actor. But I had no idea I would make my living doing it. So there’s a certain kind of peace that comes when you know where your rent is coming from, and you know you have health insurance.”

A different type of peace enveloped Vangsness five years ago when she and her longtime boyfriend attended a birthday party. It was there that she first met Goldstein.

“I remember looking at her across a table and just thinking, 'Oh shit — oh shit! — everything is going to change.'” And it did — gradually.

Soon after, Vangsness broke up with her beau (they remain good friends), but an initial attempt to be pals with Goldstein fell flat, and the two did not speak for three years.

When they finally ran into each other again, Vangsness turned to the written word.

“I sent her an apology letter — you know, because when you come out, you kind of lose your mind. You turn into a 13-year-old again. So I sent her this apology note. She was living her life, and I was living my life, and I didn't expect things to happen. I was just saying, 'Hey, I'm sorry, and I just wanted to let you know that I'm out now, and I think I'm more sane, and I just wanted you to know that and to say that I'm sorry.' So I was just sort of cleaning up my stuff.”

The note obviously worked, as Vangsness and Goldstein just marked their two-year anniversary together.

Vangsness with partner Melanie Goldstein

It was last year, though, when Vangsness decided the time had come to come out to the public. She did so in a way that would make Garcia proud — on the blog she was doing at the time for CBS.com. In talking about a charity bicycle ride that she and other Minds cast members were preparing for, she wrote, “My girlfriend and I (Happy Late National Coming Out Day) bought bikes” for the event.

“[Melanie and I] tried to do it louder,” she said. “We meant to be loud, but we wanted to be loud in the right place. I never wanted it to be like a show: 'Here I am at the People's Choice Awards holding hands with this gorgeous woman.' I didn't want it to be like that.”

The couple had decided at one point that the 2007 Outfest would be the perfect place to make things official, as it were. “It was totally appropriate. So we get all dressed up, we walk the red carpet. And the next morning we go (online), and then we look up the event, and there's nothing. We can't find a picture if our lives depended on it.”

At that point, Vangsness just wanted to get it over with.

“Because I work with this gorgeous man for whom, obviously, I would be dead if I didn't say that he makes one's heart a-flutter. And that flirting with Shemar is not fake at all. (But though) I enjoy men very much, it's just that the girls were just that much better, and you have to go where things are that much better. So I was, like, 'I need to get this out.'"

"So, because I was writing a blog, and it was the day after National Coming Out Day, I was, like, 'Well, there you go, and people can just leave it to their imagination and take whatever they want from that. But now I've said it, I'm not going to say it again.' ”

Still, even after her blog post, some people wondered whether Vangsness was serious or not, going so far as to parse what the word “girlfriend” meant in that context. For Vangsness, there was no context to translate. “Melanie’s the love of my life,” she said with beaming emphasis.

Other things also became clear to Vangsness after she came out, including experiencing anti-gay protests in a different way. Ever upbeat, she’s channeled those “sad” feelings into her acting. “I think that dealing with that made me able to be much more understanding and to tread gentler upon the Earth, certainly,” she said. “Anything that makes you a better human being automatically makes you better at your job.”

Content with her personal life, Vangsness has very little to complain about professionally as well. She's currently appearing in "Spider Bites," a new play that's being staged at Theater of NOTE, the small Hollywood theater company that she’s been a member of for eight years. And on Minds, Garcia isn't hurting in the romance department herself, thanks to her adorably geeky boyfriend, played by Buffy the Vampire Slayer alum Nicholas Brendon.

Buffy alum Nicholas Brendon plays Garcia's love interest on Crminial Minds

Before the TV bliss, though, Garcia has to overcome one more cliffhanger, as last season ended with the explosion of an SUV that contained an unidentified show regular. More angst for her fans?

Vangsness wouldn't say, but did offer some logical words of reassurance.

"If you shoot somebody, you're not going to shoot them and blow them up in the same season," she said with a sly twinkle in her eye. "So I'm not saying I'm definitely golden, but I could be golden."

Criminal Minds returns for its fourth season tonight at 9 p.m. ET on CBS.