Skip down if you want the travelly stuff, cause this is a long girly boyfriend rant....
so just about exactly 4 months ago this random dude from one of those profiley test-taking website (okcupid) randomly messaged me with the following: "so where you from when your not invading york? ".
seriously, at that moment, i would have never guessed that 4 months later he'd become one of my best friends, my confidant, my devoted boyfriend, my love, and the one person to single-handedly make my time abroad from the worst experience in my life to the very best thing i'd ever done.
what has hit me recently, is that i've now known this person longer than i have left with him.... 4 months with him gone by (2 officially together), i have but three left. what has also come upon me recently, after much thought and consideration and questioning whether my feelings could possibly be true (and they are)... is that I love him.
I remember back in a Peddie english class once we were discussing the question "What is love?". And one response given sticks out in my mind: Love is knowledge. While it sounds almost too logical and methodical or formal for something so emotional and psychological and downright inexplicable, it makes a lot of sense. Love is indeed knowledge. I know I love Dan, because I love everything that he is, and I know this because i know him well. There is no way one could genuinely love something that they have not explored the depths of, something they do not know well. A song you love, you memorize the words, the melody, the rhythms in the background, the harmonic changes, even to subtleties like a faint instrument in the background or a particular inflection in the singer's voice at a certain word...
It is like that with loving people as well. I am blessed to have met this person and to know this man quite well. Even now I cannot help but to still pay attention to the smallest things... from the inflection of his voice while on the phone with someone, to the way he dances to make me laugh, to the books he finds interesting in whsmiths, or... i could keep going but you get the idea. I've also gotten to know him in the important ways as well, the way he sees his life and ideas of where he wants it to go, the devotion and loyalty he has with his friends and his family, his genuine concern for others, his individuality and his interests.... i still do not waiver from probably one of the first comments i ever said about him, that he's one of the most genuine people i've ever met. and, now I love him.
I love both who he is and how happy he makes me. He is the first person i've ever been with to make me feel completely cared for and wanted. Again, it goes back to my essential relationship effort triumverate: friendship, affection, and time together. For the first time i've found someone who really takes part in all these things with me and I could not be more happy. He is my best friend here, he is the first person I want to talk to about anything, and I would trust him with my life. I also could not imagine a warmer affection than his.... the way he will just take my hand to hold for no reason, whether we are just walking down the street or watching tv, or gently kiss me out of the blue, or that he's just as passionate as i am about all these sorts of things... to get to the point, number 3 in my triumverate is what most has my heartstrings in a bind at the moment, time together....
We are in a "semi" long-distance relationship at the moment, but we are able to see each other close to every weekend. We enjoy each others' company greatly, seems whatever we do it's always nice, whether it is something big like seeing a concert or small like just lying in bed for hours or watching tv... I know that 3 months is still quite a bit of time left for us to enjoy each other with the regularity we have accustomed to.... but it is nothing compared to the years we will go without each other after these three months past. I mean, just look at how quickly these 4 have gone. As i said, we've known each other longer now than we have left. and it scares me terribly.
Why am i in a tizzy about this now? because it's all beginning to come to light for me, and i don't know what to do. I have just realized that i love Dan... that's a huge deal. And just about the same time I realize that, I realize we don't really got much time left. So I am in a quandary. I want nothing in the world but to tell Dan the depth of what I have come to feel for him, but I am scared. I don't doubt that he cares for me intensely and loves/ is growing to love me... but we've never talked about it. We've also never talked about our future after I leave. I mean, as far as either of us have discussed, i'm returning home to finish my last year at wes, take a year or two to work on my composition portfolio, and then apply for graduate school in the UK (have been doing research into a few places like the Royal Academy of Music in London and the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester - close to where Dan lives)... and Dan is also applying for the Jet Programme where he'd be away in Japan for a year or 2 in about the same time as all the above.... we have independent lives and aspirations at the moment, things we still want to do for our careers and our own selves, but how hard is it to still maintain a strong relationship in such a distance?
I guess this is where I stand... I have grown to love this man, and there is no way I can let everything we've become dissolve away because we are far apart. He is the best thing to have happened to me here, if not one of the best things that has happened to me ever. No person has ever made me feel so happy and liberated. I can only do the best to be as good for him as i find him to be for me, and intend on doing the best with effort both now and after we are apart for a while.
So. I guess soon enough Dan and I are gonna have the "so, what do we do next?" talk. I'm confident that this is something we will both be willing to keep, we already braved quite a few obstacles just to get to where we are now... it wasn't for nothing.
Last night, right before going to sleep, I think I heard him whisper "I love you" right before he whispered "good night", to which i said "you too, good night".... maybe he said something else and i didn't understand it because it was both whispered and in a british accent :P... but I believe that's what he tried to get out.
all i know is that everytime someone asks me about him and asks what we're going to do after i leave the UK, tears well in my eyes, because yeah, I love this man with all my heart, and I don't know what comes after this.... i'm not too great with uncertainty.
thanks for listening to me basically put my little heart out on a platter.... it's what i do best :p
love always,
-- Olga --