Going the Distance

In writing this blog, in telling the story of Aindrea and Mick, and in talking to people face to face, I've been surprised to hear how many of them (the women, really) want what I have. I'm not surprised that they want a fantastic husband who is also your best friend, but they want the whole process. It happens almost daily, a customer at the pub will notice that I'm obviously not from around here, ask where I'm from.
"America"
"Oh, what are you doing all the way over here."
"I married an Englishman."
"Oh, how did you meet?"
"We met online as teenagers. Over the years we kept in touch finally met, and now here we are."
"Oh, how romantic, what a love story!"
And I'm always a little bit surprised. Even a friend of mine said to me once, "I want what you have. I want that love story and I want a British boy."
We all want a love story, and we all deserve a great one. British men are plenty nice, but they're still just men. What I don't think people realize is just how hard it all is, and how much it entails. I love Mick more that anything in the world, but would I recommend that any couple go through what we did? Absolutely not. It's hard, it hurts, you find the most stupid things to argue about when you're apart, and you just end up not being very nice to each other a lot of the time. Not because you're horrible or you don't love each other, but because you're so frustrated with the situation and you don't know how else to express it. We were only apart for 7 months, but in that time, we had a lot of arguments, a lot of doubts, and I even had to visit the ER twice because I was in so much stress, I had a panic attack that lasted for several days.
Mick and I have both talked about this, and we have agreed that if, for some reason (God forbid) things didn't work out for us, we wouldn't do this again, with another person. Would I do it again, with Mick? Yes, because what we have is special and unbreakable. It takes unquestionable and complete trust, a lot of faith, and the kind of love you only find once in a lifetime.
I think it's really important that people don't limit themselves. If you decide at some point in your life that you're going to have, x,y,z (in my friends case, a British man), you're going to be focused on only one area. And if you do that, you're going to limit yourself and you might miss out on something really fantastic. Perhaps a Swedish guy? An Australian guy? A guy from New York or Vancouver, or, most desirably, a guy from your own town. Don't put yourself in a box, be open to life and all the surprises that life sends your way. I didn't plan to fall in love with an English boy, but it fell in my lap, I discovered how important he was to me and I decided that, come hell or high water, I'd fight to keep him. We can't help who we love, and so that also means that you can't make yourself love someone. You might find someone who checks all the boxes on your list, but at the end of the day, you might really surprise yourself with what you actually want.

Today I met a girl in the pub, and she asked all those typical questions. Once she realized we had been long distance, she immediately launched into all these questions about how she should handle a sitation with a guy that is long distance. I immediately recalled the insecurities, the desperation, the excitement, and the sadness. Let me tell you, I didn't envy this girl one little bit. I basically told her that she just had to be open, honest, and decide what would work for her, and would just have to go with the flow.
And then she spoke the words, "but I don't want to just wait and see, I want to know."
I could have laughed out loud. Not because it's funny what she said, or that it's so unusual or unreasonable to want to know how love will turn out, but because I can remember saying that to my mom, or to Brittany, curled up on her couch and wallowing in the distance. "I just want to know if we're going to make it." Over and over. I was such a broken record. I wished the girl luck and walked away wondering when I'd become Dr. Love, but I was glad to be able to help, because I certainly know how she feels.
Nobody has a crystal ball (as my mom has told me over and over and over my entire life when I worry about something) and we can't know how something is going to turn out.
But isn't not knowing half the fun?

I guess I just wanted to bring some light to the situation. I'm not saying I'm not really happy, because I am. I have snagged an amazing opportunity- I'm living in another country and learning about another culture, I'm a newlywed and the world is my oyster. But we're still a couple, like anyone else. We fight. I'm sometimes really unreasonable, and he's sometimes really insensitive. I get sad and homesick and want to go home somedays, and he gets sad about that. But each day, we wake up in the same bed, happy to see the other there. And that's all we wanted for so very long.

You just have to greet life with open arms, take what it gives you, and turn that into something that makes you want to get up every day and smile at the world. I found it in an English boy, but you mind find it somewhere else. And that is beautiful.