A Nearly Wordless Wednesday

Ten

We’ve found ourselves in a slighty tricky situation lately. I had a friend I’ve known since my freshman year of college move in with me this past weekend, and she brought her 6 week old baby with her. Long story short, her lease was up and she didn’t really have anywhere else to go. So, she’s moving in with me until I leave in June. I have always valued my privacy and have lived alone for the past four years, so I was expecting a rocky start. So far though, it’s been good. It’s nice to come home and have adult conversations after dealing with 12 year olds all day long! Plus, it helps to have someone else to do things like make dinner with, because it makes me cook more often. It’s given me a very small taste of what it will be like when I finally get to move in with my love!

But, this has put a small strain on our relationship. Nothing big and major, it just makes the logistics of things a little more difficult. We aren’t able to video chat or talk on the phone as often, which is hard. I’m also a lot busier than I was before- also hard. It is absolutely nothing we can’t handle, but we have felt its effects. Thankfully, we only have ten days until we are together again! 10! Just a breath away from single digits. It’ll be here before we know it. We are both so excited. It feels like part of each of us is missing when we aren't together. She takes my heart with her when she goes. We are honestly best friends, lovers, and better halves, all wrapped up in one. She completes me. I can't wait to be whole again.

An Award!

We have received The Versatile Blogger Award from Kiki & Lala- awesome! :D Thanks, ladies, for reading our blog and awarding us. Go check out their blog (you'll have to request an invite) because they are wonderful. Stephanie and Corrine from Waking Up With Her also nominated us. Their blog is amazing, too! They remind us of ourselves in many ways. Check them out!

Here are the rules:

Nominate 15 fellow bloggers (oh my gosh, I don't even read that many blogs!)

Inform the bloggers of their nomination.

Share 7 random facts about yourself.

Thank the blogger who nominated you.
Add the Versatile Blogger Award picture to your blog post.

7 Kay and Liss Facts
1. K likes Coke, L likes Pepsi.
2. Memorial Day was the first "holiday" we spent together.
3. We both love Mexican food.
4. We both shamelessly watch reality tv.
5. K's favorite color is green and L's favorite color is blue.
6. We have dreams to travel all over the world together.
7. We have spent 388 days together.

I'll be back later to link my favorite blogs!

The Countdown

We're just a little less than two weeks away from being able to see each other for the first time since Christmas, and the days cannot move quickly enough. On the one hand, it feel like it was just a few days ago that we were waking up together on Christmas morning, having breakfast and opening gifts in the glow from the Christmas tree. And on the other hand, we can feel the emptiness in our arms. We ache to be near each other, to have just one touch. 

 

Christmas Time.

I miss her running her fingertips up and down my arms, often simultaneously sending chills down my spine and relaxing me beyond belief. She misses my back rubs, how I work out the kinks from her day and run my nails up and down her back with what she calls the softest hands. It is terrible and painful to be apart, but it has also made us appreciate and cherish the moments we've had together that much more. I can almost run a slideshow in my mind of all of the amazing times we've had together in the short amount of time we've actually been able to spend in each others presence. 

I ask myself everyday what I did to get so damn lucky.

In just a couple of weeks, I get a week off of work for Spring Break. I will, of course, be spending this week with my love. We will finally be able to celebrate our one year anniversary, a month late. We plan on renting a hotel room (with a jacuzzi!) and just spending the night "away" together. The next day will be focused on just spending time together and enjoying being with each other. Depending on the weather, we might go to Greenfield Village, which is something we've been meaning to do for over a year now. Or, we might do something a little simpler, like a nice lunch out and perhaps a movie. Honestly, it doesn't matter what we do. We have the best time just being together. We have the "best friend" part of the relationship down pat. :)

The rest of the week will be a little more business-oriented. While our big move coming up, we have a lot to do to get ready. I'll do some training at her current job for a position I may take over, we want to start getting the house organized and cleaned to move, and make a written plan for finances and all that other fun grown-up stuff.

Speaking of the big move, we are only about 4 months away! It seems like a crazy long time, but we've made it three times that long already. Long distance relationships can be tricky, but we are living proof that, if you are meant to be together, they can work. We've had our share of struggles and miscommunications, but they are pretty rare. My biggest piece of advice to anyone going through a long distance relationship- talk things through! We have never pushed problems aside or kept them bottled up. We might get agitated for a little while, but we don't go to bed angry and we don't let things go without having talked through them. It can sometimes be tough to make myself voice these things, but she makes it pretty easy. Over time, I've gotten really good at being open, which was always a huge struggle for me. My whole life, I've kept things inside. Not with her. And that is one big key to making it this far, this far apart.

Well, my girl is fast asleep right now and it's about time I follow suit. Big things are happening this weekend, but that will be another post. Sweet dreams, friends.

A Century Away

I often joke that I was born in the wrong century. It's almost as if I have nostalgia for a time period that I never even lived through. I long for the days when life was simple. I know that I romanticize it in my mind, and that life a half a century or more ago was full of challenges I can’t even imagine. But in my head, I see greener pastures. I see how beautiful life could be, working in a one-room schoolhouse, teaching children who have a passion for learning and who respect their teachers because it’s the right thing to do. I imagine a simple wedding, in a meadow of wildflowers filled with loved ones, there for the celebration. And most of all, I imagine myself being able to fulfill and satisfy my nurturing personality.

 

Why, yes. Something like this.

I’ve never been career-driven, and have sometimes felt guilty for that. I feel like I should have a larger goal and bigger expectations for myself than “wife and mother”. It’s like I’m doing the feminists of the world a disservice by knowing in my heart that those two roles will fulfill me far more than any high-paying job or corporate position. When people ask me what I want for my future, I might come up with something that “sounds good”, like becoming a professor or principal, or going back to school for biology. And you know, I think I probably could be happy in those roles. But to be honest, I envy the hell out of stay at home moms. I know they have one of the hardest jobs in the world, but it is what I want for myself more than anything. I want to be able to be with my children from birth to at least pre-school age, and I've ever entertained the idea of homeschooling. I feel like others would want me to strive for more than this, but it is what my heart wants for. And I try not to let myself feel too bad about that.

Thankfully, I have chosen to walk the paths of life with a partner who is 100% on board with this plan. Though we aren’t ready for marriage and babies quite yet, they are both in our not-so-distance future. And my girlfriend is one who is career-driven and wants nothing more than to have a good job and provide for her family. I have no doubt that she’ll be great at it, just as I have no doubt in her ability to be an amazing mother to our children.

And when I reminisce about the life that I will never have, with the one-room schoolhouse with a horse and buggy for my main means of transportation, I could practically kiss the ground I’m walking on for putting me in this century, this decade, this day. This glorious period of time where I may not be accepted by everyone for who I love, but where I can be open and honest about it. Where I can receive the support of my friends and family, instead of shoving my desires into a rarely-visited dark corner of my mind. I am so, so very thankful.

Anyone Out There?

Hey y'all,

I have a long day of teaching 7th graders the wonders of the food chain tomorrow, and I'm up waaay past my self-imposed bedtime, but I've been messing with the blog's layout all night long and am coming up short. I know next to nothing about HTML but don't really like any of Blogger's templates. I have downloaded and installed about 13 different layouts tonight and none of them are quite what I'm looking for.

Wegan, your layout is perfect! Share the secrets! :)

Anyway, if anyone has any advice or good, affordable designers I can look into, that would be awesome. I'm going to keep looking but would love any input. I want something bright and cheerful, preferably 3 column, with the ability to have my own header if it's pre-designed.

Sweet dreams world!

How We Met

Neither of us were on the search for a new relationship when we met. I, for one, never seriously considered spending my life with another woman. Melissa was more ready to be in a relationship with one, but she wasn't actively looking, either. Instead, fate brought us together.

We met online, as many people do these days. It wasn't a dating website but somehow, we found each other anyway. We only talked for a few days before we both realized that this was something real, something that was not a phase, and something that was both terrifying and exhilarating.  We lived across the country from one another, but that didn't matter. It also didn't get in the way of us saying we loved each other a mere week into the relationship. We fell in love a month before we made it official. We were both afraid to put a label on what we had- afraid of our pasts creeping in and tainting our future together. We were afraid that saying the word "girlfriend" might make what we had seem high-schooly, or fake... as strange as that might sound. 

Melissa finally got up the nerve to ask me to make it official on February 5. We still hadn't met, and our relationship was a secret to most of our friends and family. But nothing ever felt more genuine or real than the feelings we had for each other, and the incredible relationship we had begun to build.

During my Spring Break in March, we finally got to see each other face to face. I had flown up north to see family, and planned to meet Melissa at a hotel about halfway in between my parents' house and hers. I was a ball of nervous energy on the drive up the highway. We talked on the phone on the way, but I still couldn't believe we were finally going to see each other. I got to the hotel first, and she was still almost an hour away. I took the opportunity to unpack my toiletries and organize my bags- anything to keep my mind and hands somewhat occupied. We got on the phone with our friend Sky, who was probably just as excited as either of us that we were finally getting to see each other face to face.

When she told me she had pulled in the parking lot, I had a brief moment where I just wanted to lock the door and hide. What if our face-to-face attraction didn't meet expectations? What if she thought I was boring, or ugly, or gross, or annoying? Looking back, I don't know how or why I was so afraid. The first twenty minutes or so were quiet and a little awkward, as I tried to remind myself that this was the woman I was in love with. It was her, in the flesh- and that took me a little while to comprehend after living our relationship online and on the phone for two months. Melissa was amazing, though. She prodded me to open up and be myself, at a pace I could keep up with. It turned into an amazing night, and I wouldn't take back that first meeting for anything. It was so hard to wake up the next morning and leave.

Now, it's more than a year later and we are planning my move for June, where I will be packing up my life in Texas once and for all, and moving in with my love. After a year and a half, we are thrilled to have this to look forward to in the very near future! It's been a long road, but we know that some people never find their other half, and we are thankful that we only had to spend the first year and a half apart and not any longer. I will be blogging about the move and adjusting to my life in a new city and state. 

Thanks for reading!

Charting Our Journey

My name is Kayla, life partner to Melissa. I have blogged in the past but fell off the wagon for awhile. I thought now was as good a time as any to start back up, since there are so many changes coming up in my near future that I would like to document. I also want to blog about our journey to marriage and parenthood, which will not be for a few years, but will surely have its share of challenges. I'm excited to chronicle our life together and to share it with anyone who cares to read. 

:)