My Distant Valentine

Valentine’s Day is a day to spend in the arms of the one you love. I wish so much that we could be together today, on this, our first Valentine’s Day, but even though we are apart, I know that our hearts are together always. The card you sent me is so very perfect, and it’s so sweet that you got it for me after you had already picked out a card because you saw it and thought “this is us”. Since it’s so perfect, I have inserted the quote from it here to save it for all time:

“The feelings I’m feeling right now
have kind of taken me by surprise.

I honestly didn’t see this coming,

this ‘me and you’,

but I can tell you
from the bottom of my heart,

I am so happy it came.

Being with you has brought
so much into my life –
wonderful things I didn’t even

know were missing.

Smiles that easily spill into laughter,

conversations that go longer,

deeper into the heart of things…

into our hearts.

I’m still surprised by
how you make me
happier every day…

amazed by the ways
you make me feel.

And you know what?

Those are the kind of surprises
I could get used to.”

– J. Gahr

I’m so very fortunate to have such a wonderful, loving, caring husband. Until I met you, I never knew that there was someone out there who could be so perfect for me, like we were made for each other. Our love is so strong, so pure, so true. The ring on my finger always makes me think of our vows to each other and the look of love on your face as you said them to me. When I’m with you everything is right in the world, the way it’s supposed to be; it’s a beautiful, calm, happy feeling.

Since finally meeting in person, missing you has become so much more intense, knowing for certain now how perfect we are together. But at the same time I cherish the memories of us together more than anything, every silly little detail – cute facial expressions you’re not even aware you make, our silly kisses, the warmth of your touch, the teardrop-shaped flecks of gold in your eyes that just don’t show up in photographs, hearing you breathe next to me in bed. And if I close my eyes for a few minutes and concentrate on picturing those moments in my mind in vivid detail, I can almost feel your presence for a fleeting instant…almost. I try to will you here with me, try to make the time pass faster. As I lie in bed awake at night talking to you as if you were here, I imagine that the power of our love is carrying my words to you and that on some subconscious level you feel the love I’m sending out to you in those moments. I wonder if I’m sleeping so much lately just to have moments with you, even if only in my dreams.

No matter the distance the between us, the length of the time we have to spend apart and the obstacles we need to overcome to be together, everyday I know deep in my heart that marrying you was the best decision I ever made. It’s difficult to get through these days apart, but our love will sustain us until we can be together. I know we both get so sad sometimes about being apart; the longing is so intense and seems unbearable at times, but it just shows how very much we love each other.

The past 7 months have gone by pretty fast really, so I can only hope the next 15 months go by just as fast and we can finally be together after nearly 2 years of waiting. Valentine’s Day 2015 is going to mean so much, to finally spend it together, where we belong! And then we will have many years of joyous togetherness, hopefully 50 or more Valentine’s Days together, and all the other days of the year too where will show each other love and affection every single day, because everyday is Valentine’s Day when I’m with you.

I love you so very much my forever Valentine! ♥

Death

There’s been too much of it lately to not think about it. Mortality is inevitable, but this limit is what makes life worth living. The finiteness of life is what makes time matter. The boundedness of our time on Earth is what makes every minute count.

“Death gives meaning to our lives. It gives importance and value to time. Time would become meaningless if there were too much of it.”
~ R.K. on Death, Our Lady Peace

I’ve thought about my own mortality many times of course, but more often than not it’s not fear-inducing or sad, it’s simply a fact of life. Why be sad about something you can’t change, especially when you won’t be around once it does occur? (if that makes sense) But I’m thinking about it differently now, in a way that makes me very sad. I’m thinking about the ‘what ifs’.

What if it had been you in that car that night? What if it had been you who decided to take that bottle of pills? I can’t imagine losing you already. I don’t want to imagine losing you ever!

Then I think of Mamak cursing and crying about Papak. Tears stream down my face as I realize that, whether it’s tomorrow or 60 years from now, the time will inevitably come when one of us loses the other, and the devastation that will cause, an emptiness that can never be filled. I cry just as much at the thought of you losing me as I do at the thought of me losing you. I lament my own mortality in a way I’ve never felt before, thinking of the pain you would feel. No matter what we do, no matter how much we love each other, no matter how much we want to be together forever, it just can’t happen. All we have is “so long as we both shall live”, “til death do us part”.

And here we are, waiting, apart, in two separate countries, while days and months of our lives tick by, not in each other’s arms, days we can never get back in our finite lives. I can only hope and pray that our days together will far outnumber our days apart. I cry about missing you all the time, but it’s such a profound sadness to think about losing you, to ponder the agonizing, unavoidable day when one of us is missing the other but knowing that we will never hold each other again.

Our Second Visit

We spent another 6 days together and the days went by just as fast as they did on our first visit. While they were not ideal conditions under which I was visiting this time, I’m glad I was able to be there for you. I’m glad that getting married when we did allowed me to be able to visit you under these circumstances. My only regret is that I couldn’t stay longer, and not just because I want to be with you everyday, but because I really feel you still need my love and support there in person with you.

While I’ve been comfortable with you from the very first moment we met, it really felt this time like we’ve just been together forever. I love falling asleep and waking up next to you. I love that I was able to cook for you and your Dad this time. I love taking care of you! When I’m there with you it doesn’t feel like I’m visiting, it just feels like I’m where I’m supposed to be, with you! I fall more in love with you everyday!

I love how your family accepts me. They really make me feel like part of the family. I can only hope that my family treats you the same way when you’re finally here. I love your grandmother as if she were my own. She’s so sweet and it touched my heart when she cried that I was leaving.

An unexpected bonus of visiting you when I did was that I got to spend my birthday with you. I can’t imagine a better way to have spent my birthday than snuggled on the couch all day with you watching movies. It was a perfect way to spend our last day together.

I don’t think leaving you to go back home will ever get any easier. I wish there was a way to ease the terrible sadness I feel for days and days after we part. When we get along so well in person it makes it so much harder to go back to only having the phone and internet to contact each other. And the worst part is not knowing when we’ll see each other again.

There is no one in this world I’d rather be with than you, my love. Like the title of this blog says, I will wait for you forever because I know that someday we will be together and all this sadness of missing you so very much will be just a distant memory. To finally be able to hold you and look into your eyes everyday will be the greatest gift of my life.

♥

A Message to Mark Zuckerberg

This is the message I sent Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook today:

Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

I imagine you get hundreds, if not thousands, of messages each day, but I felt the need to write you a little thank note. I was recently married and it dawned on me today that were it not for you creating Facebook I would have never met my husband.

I joined Facebook in February 2007 and for years used it pretty much as I think you intended, to connect with friends, family and classmates, to share photos and keep up to date on other people’s lives. It quickly became the website I use more than any other. Then last spring I discovered Facebook groups as a place to meet people. I met so many great people, including my husband. Since he lives 450 miles away and across an international border (I’m in Canada, he’s in the US.), it is highly unlikely that we ever would have met otherwise. While we met and got married, we won’t be living together for more than a year due to immigration issues we need to work out, but we use Facebook on a daily basis to communicate; from first thing in the morning until late at night every single day, Facebook is where we share our love for each other and build our relationship. You brought me my soul mate Mr. Zuckerberg, and for that I will forever be grateful to you and to Facebook. Thank you!

Sincerely,

“Trinity”

The Importance of Listening to Your Heart

We found each other in the most unexpected of places, and while it was clear early on in our chats that we could definitely be friends, neither of one of us expected what was to come next. Suddenly we were catapulted into a whirlwind romance that neither one of us could have stopped even if we tried. We each fell head over heels in love with the other and we both knew that very first weekend that we would be married someday.

Certainly it wasn’t logic that told us this! No rational thought could compel two people with such significant obstacles in the way to reach such a conclusion, and so quickly, especially two people who had never met and had no opportunity to do so in the immediate future. While we talked a lot and both realized what was going on, a lot of things were still unspoken at that time. It was too soon for the words “I love you” though we both felt it strongly. Our chemistry was (and is) unimaginable, like nothing either one of us had ever dreamed possible, let alone experienced. Our romance had barely just begun, yet it was the most deeply intense connection either one of had ever felt in our lifetimes. We’ve been so in sync from the start that the day I woke up hoping you’d call me “baby” on the phone later that night was the night you first did. At first we said we would meet in March, but within a few days we knew that March was far too long and we settled on October. Not long after that we both realized that we couldn’t simply meet for a few days in October; once we were here together neither one of us could bare for you to leave.

We knew we had to be together, yet there were so many obstacles in the way. I had an common-law spouse to get rid of, you had issues of your own to overcome. But we were more determined than either of us have ever been about anything. Barely two weeks into our relationship I told you in an email love letter that I knew you’d make a great step-dad to my kids, and a few days after that you sent me your first love letter (and your ponytail) by mail. We even discussed marriage briefly, even though we’d yet to say “I love you”. We didn’t know exactly how we would make it all work, but we knew that we would find a way to be together. One month into our relationship we had some balls rolling, but there was an unexpected bad day in my life. (You had seen it coming, but I didn’t.) Yet somehow like you always do, you turned the bad into good and that day told me for the first time ever that you were in love with me. We both had known the love that existed between us, but it was so nice to finally say those words to each other. More bad things happened that day, but it all worked out in our favour, and I knew for sure that our plan would work. Everything was falling into place.

Within a month everything was set on my end, and you were ready to go. We were probably a little overeager since everything had been working out so well for us and we overlooked some critical details, so, sadly, due to circumstances beyond our control, you didn’t make it here, and that was one of the saddest, most difficult days of my life. In an instant, we became painfully aware that it would be another year and half before we could actually be together. But this was never a relationship of convenience, and having spent the previous three months conducting our relationship online and over the phone, we knew we had it in us to continue our relationship this way until the day we can finally be together.

Since you coming here hadn’t worked out, I decided immediately that I would visit you over the Christmas holidays. Yet again we would be faced with what we knew from the start would be extremely difficult, the fact that I would have to leave; we would finally meet but it was only a visit. I couldn’t stay with two kids at home to think about. But there was one thing we could do while we were together to solidify our commitment to one another, and that was getting married. Within a few days the plans were made and be both knew in our hearts it was the perfect thing to do.

Nothing could have been more perfect when we finally did meet. Everything was exactly as I had expected it to be between us. We proved to ourselves and to the world that you really can fall in love on the internet. We found true love and real chemistry that was even more intense in person.

We listened to our hearts above all rationality, but doing so very likely saved both our lives. Every fiber of my being tells me we are soul mates and that destiny brought us together. This time apart is certainly a test of our love and devotion, and of our trust and abilty to communicate with one another, but one that I have no doubts we will pass with flying colours. Marrying you was the best decision of my life and I know someday we’ll be together, because we are meant to be.

It all sounds a little crazy if you haven’t felt what we feel, but when the heart speaks loudly you have no choice but to listen, or risk a lifetime of misery and regret.

♥

I Knew I Loved You Before I Met You

Song lyrics that make me think of us ♥

I Knew I Loved You – Savage Garden

Maybe it’s intuition
But some things you just don’t question
Like in your eyes
I see my future in an instant
and there it goes
I think I’ve found my best friend
I know that it might sound more than
a little crazy but I believe

I knew I loved you before I met you
I think I dreamed you into life
I knew I loved you before I met you
I have been waiting all my life

There’s just no rhyme or reason
only this sense of completion
and in your eyes
I see the missing pieces
I’m searching for
I think I found my way home
I know that it might sound more than
a little crazy but I believe

I knew I loved you before I met you
I think I dreamed you into life
I knew I loved you before I met you
I have been waiting all my life

A thousand angels dance around you
I am complete now that I found you

I knew I loved you before I met you
I think I dreamed you into life
I knew I loved you before I met you
I have been waiting all my life

Patience – Our Wedding Song

This is the song we danced to alone in your bedroom on our wedding day. There was a long discussion prior to our wedding to pick this song (since we rarely agree on music), but it suddenly became so obvious that this was the perfect song. ♥

Patience – Guns n’ Roses

One, two, one, two, three, four
(whistle)
Shed a tear ’cause I’m missin’ you
I’m still alright to smile
Girl, I think bout you every day now
Was a time when I wasn’t sure
But you set my mind at ease
There is no doubt you’re in my heart now

Said woman take it slow, and it’ll work itself out fine
All we need is just a little patience
Said sugar take it slow and we’ll come together fine
All we need is just a little patience
(patience)
Mmmm, yeah

I sit here on the stairs
‘Cause I’d rather be alone
If I can’t have you right now I’ll wait dear
Sometimes I get so tense but I can’t speed up the time
But you know love there’s one more thing to consider

Said woman take it slow and it’ll work itself out fine
You and I’ll just use a little patience
Said sugar take the time cause the lights are shining bright
You and I’ve got what it takes to make it
We won’t fake it, I’ll never break it
‘Cause I can’t take it

(whistle)
Little patience, mmm yeah, mm yeah
Need a little patience, yeah
Just a little patience, yeah
Some more patience, yeah
Could use some patience, yeah
Gotta have some patience, yeah
All it takes is patience
Just a little patience
Is all you need (background vocals)

I’ve been walking the streets at night
Just trying to get it right
Its hard to see with so many around
You know I don’t like being stuck in the crowd
And the streets don’t change
But maybe the names
I ain’t got time for the game cause I need you
Yeah, yeah, yeah, ’cause I need you
Ooo I need you, whoa I need you
Ooooh, all this time
(ah)

Someday We’ll Be Together

Someday we’ll be together
I’ve known this from the start
When so quickly we developed
A deep connection of the heart

So quickly you became
The centre of my universe
But we’re separated by a border
As if by some evil curse

On a beautiful winter’s day
I married the love of my life
And we rang in the New Year
As husband and wife

Someday we’ll be together
And everything will be right
Someday we’ll be together
No matter how hard we have to fight

I miss you so much
But our love is strong
Someday we’ll be together
Even if the wait is long

Someday we’ll be together
I’ll wait for you forever

♥

The Speed of Time

Time is strange. Scientifically each second lasts long as the next and as the one before. No day is any longer than any other. But time only really matters in the way we experience it. Time can seem to move too fast sometimes and at other times painfully slow.

I have a love of numbers and counting, quite possibly of an obsessive-compulsive nature. I particularly like to count time. Time holds special meaning to me because I ‘see’ time through time-space synaesthesia. At any given time I can ‘feel’ and ‘see’ my precise location in space on the curves and slopes of my internal yearly calendar, on the span of time, and on the waves of the time of day. Even on this internal calendar not all time is created equal with some months being larger than others in space. Yet I like to count time as if by doing so I control the experience of it. I count minutes, hours, days, months, years. I count time elapsed, I count down time. I’ll even count seconds when I think it will make time pass more quickly. This assumes that time follows the scale and patterns dictated by the ticking of the clock, but it really does nothing to affect the speed of time in the manner I desire, be that to speed it up or slow it down, and it probably often has the opposite effect.

The 5 months we waited to meet felt like years as we got to know each other so well. Yet the minutes fly by when we talk on the phone. A 20 minute conversation with you feels like just a few minutes. When we talk for hours, it feels like an hour at the most. Waiting for you to come online or call sometimes feels like an eternity. Sometimes the passage of time can be agonizing.

We waited so long to meet and finally I arrived. The happiest moment in my life was stepping off that train and running into your arms. I can replay that moment in slow motion over and over again. I remember you leaning down trying to kiss me but I had to squeeze you first and hold you for a minute with my head buried in your chest before looking up at you and kissing you for the very first time. We spent 10 wonderful days and nights together, laughing, smiling, making love, holding each other, just looking at each other in disbelief that we were finally in each other’s presence. But before we knew it, it was over. We were husband and wife but we could no longer be together. Those were the fastest 10 days of my life! So many happy memories together, but it all ended way too fast! Even our goodbye seemed to happen so fast. The train pulled up, you helped me carry my luggage on, a quick hug and kiss and you were gone. While I can replay our meeting in slow motion, our goodbye flashes through my mind in an instant. And so began the long, sad train ride home. I cried and slept the whole way home. (Good thing I took that huge wad of kleenexs from your room before I left.) The all day journey seemed so much longer than on the way there when I was anticipating joy upon arrival. I no longer had anything to look forward to in the immediate future.

I longed for you before we even met. I knew it would get harder once we had finally been together and had to go back to being apart. What I didn’t anticipate is the feeling that time has practically ground to a hault. We’ve only been married for 13 days, but the last 8 of those have been spent apart. It feels like an eternity. Every second I long for you so deeply it physically hurts. Days are going by so slowly now, more slowly than I’ve ever experienced the passage of time. I had hoped that the next 16 months apart until we can finally be together forever would pass somewhat quickly, fueled by our memories of being together, but at this rate it feels like a lifetime until that day finally comes, a lifetime of tears and pain. I love you so much it hurts, and sometimes I don’t know how I’ll make it through to next spring when all I want is for you to be here right now, to hold you in my arms everyday, to fall asleep next to you each night, and to wake up next to you each and every morning for the rest of our lives. ♥

Tick………Tock……….Tick……….Tock

I wish I could speed up this clock.

Our Story – Part 1

Sometimes you find love in the most unexpected of places, and that is certainly true in our case.

It was June of 2012. I was stuck in an abusive relationship. Over the years I had often tried to escape my life through fantasy. But on this particular occassion I discovered a very active online community discussing events in the news. I quickly found many people I could relate to and enjoyed these new friendships very much.

I remember the very first time we spoke publicly. Teddy created a post on a topic that interested me, I responded. (I later found out he wrote the post hoping that I would respond.) Right off the bat he seemed like a highly intelligent individual. I wasn’t looking for love and I had no thoughts at that time that anything would develop between us.

A few weeks later, on a Saturday night, things were quiet in the online community. I saw that Teddy was one of my few contacts online so I messaged him to chat. He was busy and we didn’t end up chatting that night.

Another few weeks passed and we interacted publicly, but had not even really developed a friendship like I had with some of the female contacts I’d met. Then one day Teddy messaged me that he had to tell me something. He was messaging me to warn me about about a particular individual in the community, someone who was pretending to be something they’re not. I thanked him for telling me and thought “He’s a good guy for warning me like that when he doesn’t even know me.”

Over the next week or so we spent a lot of time chatting. He made me laugh a lot, mostly with jokes about my native country. At first our chats revolved around topics of interest, but soon we began to share personal details of our lives. I had been told for so long that there are details of my life that, if I shared them, would cause people to reject me. I had nothing to lose and something urged me to pour out all the details of my history to this stranger online. Unexpectedly, Teddy did not reject me. He was kind and compassionate. I decided it would be ok to share a photo of myself with him. I started to develop feelings for him, but still didn’t think much of it at this point.

It was the end of July and finally one day after chatting all day, I asked him if he would call me. I wanted to put a voice to this person I had spent so much time talking to online. After that first phone call, we talked every night that weekend. He made me smile and laugh even more on the phone than he did online. We were in love by the end of that first weekend. We both knew it seemed so fast to be having these feelings, so we didn’t tell each other in so many words, but we both knew. ♥

To be continued…