Baby, I'll bring Texas to you

I would argue that many of my most significant relationships to date have been long distance. I would freely admit that. Indulge in it, even.

From the very beginning…

The first boy I was ever certain I loved eventually taught me what it was like to be far away from that somebody, and how hard it would be to keep together. I was still in high school then, and he was offered a scholarship to play piano at a university 45 minutes away. Forty-five minutes! That’s hardly anything in retrospect. But when you are fifteen years old, without a car or drivers license, a whole year shy of when your mother was fixed on ‘allowing you to date’, that short trip seems like a million miles away. And pretty soon the trip is made less and less, and that boy you fell in love with that summer, under those constellations & turning streetlights, green-yellow-red, he slips out from your grasp, as the miles and the age gap slowly lead you down individual paths.

Of course it was for the best, and that particular breakup, little could I have ever known back then, would prove to be the most valuable in preparing me for the rest of my wandering life.

When I moved to university myself I had to say goodbye to the second love of my life: my very best friend Brianne Poole. And she moved me into my dorm room, and we hugged and we cried and we told each other nothing would ever change. And in a million ways, nothing ever did. She still holds one of the biggest pieces of my heart, that girl who saved my life in every possible way. The love of long-distance best friends continues to make me the person I am today.

I’ll skip ahead to the boy next door. He was older, enchanting, sweet. He was nervous and subtle, but also the boy who made the single most romantic gesture towards me (and I just watched Love Actually a few days ago, smiling at the big white Bristol boards that are still tucked into the back of my closet back home… a Christmas declaration of his own). People always say This generation will always remember where they were the day the world’s first black man was elected president! Now every time I see Obama, I think of him. I remember lying on my bed, my tiny 1205D bed, just a few days before his scheduled flight back to the UK, and I remember him telling me exactly how I made him feel. And if we might consider it, how he might be able to make me feel in return, even from 6,000 kilometers away.

That was my first international proposition. I was 18 years old, and I knew it wasn’t the right time for me to be packaging up my heart to ship away across an entire ocean just yet, and I am grateful for realizing that before we ever had the chance to break either of them, but I am more grateful that that boy ever made the overseas option a possibility for me… It certainly helped prepare me for my next long-distance challenge.

A few summers later, I was jumping on my own first international flight. It was the most exciting opportunity for me, and I already had all these tingly feelings I would fall head over heels for Italy. I was so happy to be doing in alone, though I wasn’t naïve enough to assume it would be easy. In fact, I had ended the most serious relationship I had ever had only half a year earlier, thinking it would prepare me for this independent journey abroad (one I already knew to be only the first of many). However, as I should have predicted, those months leading up to my take off left plenty of time to get my heart all wrapped up in someone else. Someone old and then new again. Someone who had some unknown pull, some inexplicable potential that I could never seem to let go off. He made it clear he didn’t want things to end simply because I was flying away for four months.

And even when he flew out to meet me that fateful, classic, romantic afternoon in Paris, and even though we had a pretty outstanding few weeks running around Europe (a place we eventually made our home together) after all of our time apart, that time apart came back to haunt us, and the long-distance thing continued to feel like the impossible. Today that same boy can be found pulling heart strings from the orient. Our newest version, unique unto ourselves, of long-distance love. The same unrealistic potential that won’t seem to fade.

And here we are, in the present, as you could guess: I am about to take flight once more. I have found something wonderful and genuine and great here, and in my own true fashion, I am bidding it adieu in only a few short weeks. Weeks which will surely fly, moments which will pass as quickly but as lovely as the breeze, memories that I already know will dissolve and settle deep within my bones. And then I will once again be gone. Away. Long-distance. Apart. And there is no way of telling if it is any match for the distance or not.

I guess all I’ve really learned from each experience is that if you’re even going to consider the dreaded decision of maintaining something ‘long-distance,’ you have to first believe in the ways of the universe, and trust that she will help you work it out in her own best fit. You have to have faith that it will succeed if it’s meant to. You have to be certain unto yourself that it’s even something worthy of consideration and then maintenance and dedication and loyalty. You have to be with someone you truly trust, completely and absolutely.

But what I can’t seem to distinguish is the difference between needing all of those things long-distance, when surely they are still the most significant and necessary factors of any relationship, no matter how near or far that person is. I know the miles make a difference, but if your heart is in the right place, it really shouldn’t make or break.

And those of you who really know me will be reading this unsettled, worried about the conclusive tone of these paragraphs, and maybe I’ve come to the end of this post, this particular topic, this so-obvious theme, without addressing that single most significant long-distance relationship in my entire young life. A relationship that continues on through to this very day, even though the miles between us now are unimaginable and unattainable.  

I am not ready to write our story. Because I’m not sure I’ll ever feel it appropriate to try to force myself to summarize any of it. Or contain it to paper and pen, keyboard and document. I don’t know how to construct proper sentences to demonstrate what we shared across the miles. I’m scared if I ever truly tried, it would be my biggest disappointment to date.

But since this topic only really exists because of him, because of our long-distance love story, since he is the center of it all (and continues to be, when it comes to anything significant in my life); since the arrival of this tiny gold chain and pendant are what even sparked these thoughts… Maybe I will give it a try to give us a voice.

I have never stopped to put real words together, because I know none of them will do any of it justice. I have barely written soberly on the subject in my own private journal. He didn’t get so much as a Facebook status. I have been selfish. I have wanted to keep our memories for me. And perhaps, I just couldn’t find the words. I am confident in the fact that I knew him in ways that other people were not lucky enough to know him. Yes, I knew his contagious smile, and those huge gorgeous eyes, and that slight southern drawl he acquired, the same way others knew those things. But he and I also knew a long-distance ache. We knew an unwavering desire, an unmistakable pull towards each other. We were fire and gasoline; the most dangerous part of every holiday or summer season, whenever we were in the same country again. Even those fifteen hundred kilometers that separated us the majority of the year were bad news...

And I loved him. Admittedly, in a way that I did not know existed until he was gone. Until he was gone, and this massive piece of me was gone with him.

But I’ve been talking to him, as frequently as ever. When I heard the news three Augusts ago, our latest interaction (which was always unpredictable and sporadic) was so recent that I still had our BBM conversation open. I didn’t know who to talk to, and most of the time I still don’t. I never sat down and talked to anyone about this, or about him. Unless you count the many sad nights after a trip to the Ranch, conversations I can’t remember. I didn’t know who to talk to. I didn’t know who, in my world, would understand. Again, selfish.

But that was the thing: I shared something with him that was almost entirely only ours. It was never fully accepted or understood by his friends, and I never had the chance to truly know his family. It was just me & him, in our own little world. It was more of a sneak-in/sneak-out summer romance that took off on us, and became something we never could have expected, or known how to control. He was my biggest weakness. I’ve had a lot of really great guys in my life, and he was the threat to all of them.

In some ways, I feel he still is.

And I’ve told him this. I kept BBMing him. And I know that sounds crazy, and I feel crazy for it, but he was the only one who I felt would understand. Now, having gotten rid of my blackberry (saving that conversation in my files), I have a note in my new phone that reads over 13,900 words. I could publish a short story of the words I've written to him. But still, here and now, I can’t seem to lace the sentences together properly.

So I close my eyes…

I’m in a car, parked in that abandoned lot, overlooking that baseball field, with my windows down. There is a mild Canadian summer breeze blowing over my face and into my lungs, deep, fulfilling. I don't want to see anything I don't want to talk to anybody I just want to be here with you. Here. Where only a few years ago, you were driving these streets, living in this city. This world. Now I'm not sure where you are. And I want to believe so badly that it is you I feel falling across my face and filling my lungs, my soul. But I don't know if that's possible. What I do know is that wherever you are, I bet you like to hang out in these kinds of places. Old baseball fields, worn out diamonds. Summer skies and peace. I feel calm here. And maybe that is you. Maybe it is you I feel when I feel this calm.

I wish you were here. I wish we were together, in that big empty field, or this empty car. And I am taken back to another time spent together in another car. And that was the best time. No Christmas Eve will ever (ever) beat ours. It was my most romantic evening, to date. What I wouldn't give to be living in those midnight moments, sneaking out to your car, to that abandoned school parking lot, seats down in the back of your station wagon, your Texas compilation mix CD playing on repeat. You knew every word, and you sang them into my soul. You swept my heart away all over again. It was my very first two-step, you spun me in that winter wind storm. And we made promises and we made love and I knew even back then: nothing would come close.

Or the time in your family's minivan parked at our original baseball diamond, the diamond where we laid together on the pitchers mound until the sun came up the next morning, only a couple of weeks after we’d really even met each other. You took me back there the following winter, and you turned to me and told me you weren't afraid anymore, and then you told me three more words. Those three words.

Or the time we spent in your car a few more years later, atop Water Street. And Kenny sang us 'Somewhere with You,' and we both vowed the lyrics to be true and you kissed me, even though you shouldn't have. And I kissed you back, even though I shouldn't have. Because that seemed to be all we ever knew.

I guess, thinking back on it now, it wasn’t so much a love we shared over any distance, but how strong the distance made that love every time we got to be near again. Of course, the past two and a bit years have been the longest I’ve ever gone without seeing you. And those years will keep adding, and I think in some way, our way, this love will also keep getting stronger. You are further away from me now than you have ever been before, but I still feel those memories as clear as day, whenever I let them flow back through my veins. Sometimes, I swear I even feel you right next to me.

But I still miss you, just as strongly as ever before. I miss you like I missed you instantly when you pulled out of my driveway after shedding tears that last day of summer 2008. Like I missed you during first year when we shared a long distance longing for one another. Like I missed you when we broke beneath that, and broke up. Or how I missed you after every single holiday season came to an end you flew back down south. I miss you like I have since the moment I heard the news in Trafalgar Square that August 4^th when my whole world cracked and shattered. I miss you with every fiber of my being, with every inch of my soul, and every ounce of my heart. It's still yours.

I want to send all of my love back home, to everyone else I miss deeply. I hope you all know how much you mean to me, and how that will never waver with this distance. Mostly though, I hope you get to be near the ones you love tonight.

xoko
(this one's for you)

A Happy International Holiday,

To me, Christmas means family and warmth and love. Today I am away from my home country on this very special day for the first time in my life. However, in my world’s own unique way, I was still blessed with all three of those wonderful things.

I think family can mean a multitude of things, and today my friends became my family. My blonde Canadian sisters and the extended connections I’ve made around town. The beautiful, heartfelt messages I received from each significant Aussie I’ve ever met here, they came pouring in to remind me that even when blood relatives are hundreds of thousands of miles away, that feeling of family can come to you in many different ways. I am so incredibly grateful for the facetimes and the Skypes I’ve already had with my parents and my sister back home, but I am also wildly content with my perfect little family here.

This Christmas I felt warmth in an entirely different way than ever before! Instead of warm apple cider rum with cinnamon in mom’s living room, or the toasty ambers of dad’s fireplace, today was hot, deep, gorgeous summer sun soaking right into my skin on a flawless morning trip to the beach. Today was warm, salty ocean waves splashing over my sandy limbs, penetrating, radiating right down to my core. Even now, as the clouds have rolled over & the sky is rumbling deep, the evening is still sultry. Few things beat the feeling of walking barefoot in a summer shower. Warm pavement, bath water under your feet. Everything is smooth, everything is soft, with no umbrella, it is felt deep down to my bones. Happy, smiley bones.

All of this, in combination with an incredible home cooked meal, conversations in laughter and celebration, Champaign cheers & old Nat King Cole, makes me feel love. Every single kind of love: love in gratitude, love in recognition, love in peace and remembrance, love in freedom, love in possibility and opportunity, love in wonder, love in how-did-I-get-so-lucky? I feel long-distance love, from the orient, from my native land, from all of the countries in the world I have lived and met people to share some kind of love with. I feel love in myself, for getting myself here to this happiest life possible for me. And for every single soul that helped me to be this incredibly happy, even when I am way over here for this special holiday. I love being here.

There was no snow, there were no presents to unwrap, there was no wifesavers breakfast, or little ClayBoy with his Christmas bell collar. There was no candy cane ice cream or sunshine walk through the winter wonderland that is the speed river trail. There was no Hanson Snowed In, and there were no magical moments with my beautiful nephew on his very first Christmas Day. But there was family, and there was warmth, and there was love.

It is all I need :)

xo,

Merry Everything and Happy Always

The Perfect Little Getaway

Monday, December 15^th

I had this dream.

I am walking around the house barefoot;

My toes feel light, soft on the smooth floor.

The world is glowing,

I am floating from one tile to the next.

I am freshly showered;

My skin is still cooling its steam, smelling of lemons. Always lemons.

My insides feel loose, relaxed, satisfied;

Renewed in all raw, natural sensations. There was some magic before this moment.

This house I’m tiptoeing smells warm;

Like eggs and bacon and espresso. 

There is an early sunshine sneaking through the windows, 

waiting patiently to be played in.

I am not alone in this dream;

And he is singing Rodriguez.

I never see his face, but I like to feel he is smiling.

Both arms slip undisturbed around his waist.

I can't seem to open my eyes. but gently each other sense awakens all over again.

We steal a breakfast kiss.

I had this dream.

A dozen different bird sounds bring me back to consciousness, and we exchange our technicoloured reverie for those natural puzzle-piece fits, shifting slightly in sleepy smiles. With soft, silent secrets shared between the sheets comes reluctance to surrender to this brand new day. But we let it come, we let it rustle us back into vitality. Because with experience we know: these will only be more wonderful waking hours.

I hop in the shower; he asks me what I’d like for breakfast.

I lather in lemon, I hear him press play.

Guess I’ll keep my dreams, they’re more than your answers.

You’ll burst at the seams, no I’ll take my chances.

                                                                                ~~

pm,

Driving back from an arvo of waterfalls and warm sunshine. My skin is humming, sun soaked, the drive is bumpy with butterflies. A perfect day of seclusion; cliff jumping, summer baking, silly superficial conversations on the riverbank. Today I looked at him and felt so secure in the thought, I just really like being near.

An evening elevated, increased altitude, natural wonders, literal star-crossed lovers. We watch the bats stream above us, a steady flow of night creatures soaring overhead into the mauves and pinks of our day slipping away. What a good day it was; better than good. And we are left giggling with the house pets, intoxicated by those big, shining solar systems.

Tuesday, December 16^th

I reckon some of the most exhilarating, most worthy seconds of your life come with a little coaxing (preferably from 3 young Aussie studs!). Today I had a whole handful of those seconds, and I really wouldn’t have done any of it without feeling that slight force, that healthy pressure to (sometimes literally) spread your wings and take that leap of faith.

It takes the right kind of people to have that effect on you, to spend a full arvo doing reasonably dangerous things, cliff jumping and rock climbing and slippery stone hopping and wading through rushing waterfall currents… To come out of it with just a few new scrapes and scratches, and a heart still racing with adrenaline from the afternoon sunshine and good company, because you felt genuinely safe the entire way through.

Really though, what is the worst that could happen? It’s only 14 meters of distance from that rushing waterfall pit staring back up at you. Shaky legs, half a bottle of goon in your tummy, the cheers and encouragement from those who went before you, one deep breath, turn off that common sense switch in your mind, and never, ever, hesitate.

I reckon we should live the majority of the moments in our daily lives this way. Quit thinking and jump. How much of a risk could it even be if that Aussie guy you've come to let yourself trust in wild influence without inhibition is just 14 meters down, smiling that smile, knowingly. He knows I'll do it. 

That's why I'm here. That's why we're doing this. 

Wednesday, December 17^th

A picnic in paradise

Big private beach, cold leftover beers.

Our last full day for a little while, spent in sunshine smiles. And despite the minor hiccup interruptions, it’s so nice to just lay here next to him, soft sand in my fingertips, summer seeping into my skin, feeling ultimately grateful and satisfied with the way that things worked out. Things seem to have a way of it, especially for us. It’s easy to stay hopeful that they will just continue to. 

The countdown to January is on… xo

Ask-Believe-Recieve // My most significant anniversary to date

Written December 14^th 

Today is one of those days (as they creep around only every so often) that I am completely consumed by memories. I have no use for the past, and rarely think of it. But today I allow it to surround me, and I have to admit (shamelessly, but consciously), I am using these memories purely for comparison. Today I let myself contrast. Today in this year, in this country, with this guy, in this happy life. One year ago today I was at an airport, in a different country, with a different guy, in a different, unhappy life. One year ago today it was all falling away from me so suddenly. And here I am now, with absolutely everything in my life coming together.

I can’t believe it has been a year. I have been waiting so long to write this post; the weeks creeping up to this significant little anniversary have left me reeling with excitement and anticipation in finding the most perfect words to somehow compare, contrast, and correlate my different selves throughout this past year of my life. It feels as if it ought to be December 31^st already, for this date marked the start of a new year and a new life for me. I can’t believe it’s been a year.

But if you’ll let me reflect properly, when I let myself actually stop and think about what made this new year and new life so spectacular (in fact, my best yet), really only one word comes to mind and it is how I lived every single day of this year, it was something that awoke in me, and became the biggest part of me. It is how I came to meet all of the people I met this year, it is what opened me up to my best experiences and my happiest moments and brought me into my most cherished self, someone I can be proud of. This was my year of gratitude. If there is one underlying notion that I could only hope has been laced throughout each one of these posts, and way back through my 100happydays, and in any of our interactions and accompanying all of my daily decisions and attitudes, it should be how absolutely and entirely grateful I have been and still am for this whole new year of my life.

And I truly believe that karma played a massive part in this year for me. I believe nothing more than if you choose to be happy so deep inside, and if you reflect that happiness and your gratitude for that happiness back out into the world, if you project your positivity forward and all around, those vibes will come back to you and you will get exactly what you deserve, which should be exactly what you asked for. Work hard, be kind.

Ask – Believe – Receive.  

1 exact year ago I asked for something. In some of my lowest days and most desperate hours, I still recognized the gratitude I felt for the dark period of my life that was coming to a close, as I wrote one single, solitary post from England on my last night spent there…

“…I had been trying to figure out what I want from this life. And then how to get it. Because I will always find a way to get what I want. But only if I could first figure out what it is that I want from this life… And this is why I am most grateful for this brief chapter of my life, because if it taught me anything at all, it taught me what I want…” - http://mintcovered.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/in-closing.html
(Saturday, December 14^th 2013)

And so I determined the most crucial things that I wanted out of this life, and I didn’t even realize that this was my personal way of asking the universe to help me receive them. I asked for laughter and intelligent conversation. I asked to feel appreciated, cared for, and thought of. And then, seemingly out of the blue, I stated the one thing I was mysteriously certain I wanted,

“I want to see so much more of this world. I want to live in different cultures. I want to be the foreigner. I want to be the sore thumb; I wore that role so well two summers ago in Italy. I want to use my language and my nationality to make friends and connections and genuine relationships. I want my travel to have meaning, but it does not necessarily need purpose. I want to live in Australia. I want to wake up on a beach and meet the people with sand in their hair and sun on their skin and smiles in their hearts. I want them to make me one of those people…”

All I did was determine what it was that I wanted, and then I spent a year trying to be the happiest, kindest, most grateful person I could be for every single opportunity and experience that came my way and I feel so lucky for all that has come of this year. I still can’t believe most of the things I was lucky enough to come into and be apart of. I asked, I believed, I received my happiest life yet.

And this was not the only major revelation I took from this year. It was my first and only year to date (since I’m fourteen years old) that I remained ‘single’ for the entirety of it. It was something else I set out to achieve, and as silly as it sounds, that’s exactly how I view it: an achievement. I was absolutely spoiled with the people I met this year. And I fell head over heels for a good few of them! But four months ago, I had my next biggest revelation and I unknowingly asked the universe for what I now wanted most,

“…I just feel that I am at a place in my life where I need to be over-stimulated. I have not found any one thing that held my attention much longer than a few dates, or even upwards of a few months. Great guys; smashing Aussie guys and some real winners back home too. There has been nothing disappointing in the company I’ve kept since developing my new life here. But that is because I establish myself in this life, and with all of these people, as the temporary: the fleeting, rambling, unexpectedly leaving girl. The way I see it, I move on perfectly quickly enough to not let these guys disappoint me, or bore me. Or me to disappoint and bore them! I don’t just want a great guy! I think I want a guy in my life so little, that I have created the most impossible version of my ‘next boyfriend.’ On purpose (of course, because why make things easy for myself). He is about a million things, but I can sum him up in one notion: he is inspiring. I need to feel inspired by him.” - http://www.australianmintcovered.blogspot.com.au/2014/08/thaimintcovered-my-3-week-journey-to.html (Sunday, August 10^th 2014)

Part of me can’t even believe those are actually my words, from where I am sitting now. I mean from where I am physically sitting: at a kitchen table, with the sounds of Tallest Man on Earth playing background to our morning, regular breakfast conversation. I suppose to you that doesn’t come across as the million things I knew I wanted out of him, but if you have read any of my previous posts as of late, or if you know me and trust my judgment at all, you will believe me when I say I can certainly sum up this morning, these past months, this whatever-this-is relationship as just that. Inspiring.

I really can’t believe I can sit here and read those words from just four months ago, smiling like an idiot over what the universe delivered to me that fateful, nearly forgotten, brief beach encounter under the stars and around the fire of that joint birthday party. I never could have known.

And what’s funniest is the part I claimed about establishing myself in this life, with all of these people as the temporary: “the fleeting, rambling, unexpectedly leaving girl”. While that sentence still has some natural familiarity, and certainly some truth (I leave for Broome in one month…) I start to consider how strongly I even want to be considered temporary anymore. How easy it is to be fleeting, fluttering in and out of other people’s worlds while yours simply continues to expand and adjust to the constant redesign. It is easy. And parts of it are wonderful. But then part of me starts to just consider it. How nice it might be to not live with impermanence. Maybe someone might start to evaluate me properly; to regard me as something more. More than just a few nice weeks, or one last great month.

You just start to wonder. And then naturally, for me anyway, that wonder has its own instinct to dissipate. And whether that is actually natural or forcefully trained, you just sort of let it happen. Maybe it is just easier not to bother with those thoughts. This is the life I have created, the one I have chosen for myself. I can’t have it both ways. And so I certainly can’t expect it to align with anyone else’s. Once upon a time it almost did, but we all remember how that turned out, one whole year ago.

When it’s meant to be, it will. In the meantime, I adore this. I feel so strongly about it, and I can’t thank the universe enough for allowing me to ask and believe and receive this particular request. To remind me that inspiration can and should be a crucial component in any relationship. And for giving me such a gorgeous example of that.

It’s incredible to think about how easy it really is to get the things that we want out of this life. To be the kind of people we want to be, and to achieve the kind of things we want to achieve. All we have to do is ask. Make goals, work hard, be kind, appreciate absolutely everything that comes into your life, because it is definitely there for a reason. And the rest of it will fall into place properly to bring you those things you asked for.

I am not quite ready to ask for anything more from this life just yet. I have no immediate goals or plans for redesign. I got my happy life. I have laughter and intellectual conversation. I feel appreciated, cared for, and thought of. I am continuously inspired to bring to detailed life these moments that I get to share with this really great guy. I am completely content being here in this life alongside the people with sand in their hair and sun on their skin and smiles in their hearts. I truly have become one of those people, and I couldn’t feel more grateful.

I spent this significant little anniversary of mine pursuing platypi under the bridge at dusk.  

Life is so great. Happy Anniversary, to me.