Getting Ready!

I'm off work for the summer and so I've had plenty of time to plan, plot and think about the upcoming trip. Oh, and occasionally do some packing. I tend to get very overwhelmed with all of this, so it's been moving at a slow pace. I can be a bit messy by nature, so the packing aspect is not really my favorite part of a move.

Not coming along as quickly as it should be!

Meanwhile, Melissa is at work everyday and I keep her busy on her breaks by blowing up her phone!

We are a mere TEN days away from Melissa's flight! She'll be landing around 10 AM, and we will be busy bees all day. We will have to pack up the car and clean the apartment, as well as drop off my keys to the complex manager. We will spend some quality time together and attempt to mask our excitement for the journey long enough to get some much-needed sleep. Monday morning, we can't leave until about 10 in the morning, and the first leg of our trip promises to be a long one. We will have my cat, Coda, who is going to live with Melissa's best friend in Georgia. :(( Very very sad about this, but she has three large dogs who would love to have him as a snack, so there wasn't much of a choice in the matter. He's going to be well taken care of, but I'm going to miss my little man! So the first day is all about getting us to Georgia. It is about a 13 hour drive without stops, so we are planning on at least 14. Thank goodness there are two of us to share the driving.

When we arrive in Georgia, it'll be the middle of the night. We'll spend a little time with her friend and let Coda roam around his new home. I'm really hoping he adjusts quickly, because the goodbye is going to be bad already! We will leave Georgia the next day, probably not very early. Then, we have about 11 hours to go until we get to Michigan.

It's going to be a challenging couple of days, but we are excited for our first Kay and Liss road trip! Not so excited about sharing the radio, however! We plan to take lots of pictures and maybe even a video or two, and those will be posted as soon as I get settled into my new home!  

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.

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. 

:)