and it's not even valentine's day yet...

I have been in England for almost three months. And there is so much I could say, so much I need to tell you all. About how I am settling in. How I feel so very much at home already. How some things are so much different than I expected. And how some things are exactly what I thought they would be. There is so much I could tell you about the places I've seen, the new things I've tried, the happiness I have found, so very far from where I started.

And I will.


But not today.


Today I want to tell you about My Guy. That wonderful, incredible man who brought me halfway around the world. And for whom I would have gone across the universe if I had to.

We have been living together here in England for almost three months. Which is almost three times as many days as we have ever spent in each other's physical company over the past two years since we started our long-distance romance. Thirty-two. That is how many days we were together before I got here to my new home. All the rest of those two years was spent on webcam, in telephone calls, on missing each other more than I can say.

Now, when My Guy and I met online, completely by accident, neither of us looking for love on the internet, I really had no idea where it might go. Two weeks after we bumped into each other in a virtual online world, and hadn't stopped talking a moment since, My Guy asked if I would be willing to try a long-distance relationship. At the time I didn't even really know what that meant. Or how it would work. But I didn't care. I had met someone who seemed to be the other half of me, who filled up all the empty places with laughter and hope and a giddy feeling that had me floating through those early days.

I was so scared in the beginning. I worried that I would give my heart over to this man, only to have him crush it completely when he couldn't handle the challenges that I present. I had never before let my heart go unguarded, had never met anyone that I even suspected would be able to cope with...well, with me. But this man made me think maybe, just maybe...

And he has proven to be so much more than I could ever have dreamed for myself. He has a boundless compassion, an empathy that never crosses over to pity, a patience that astounds me still. He also has my twisted sense of humour and makes me laugh until I can't breathe and my stomach hurts the next day. He takes care of me...but also lets me take care of him when he needs it.

We will be married in four weeks from today. And I know that none of this really means anything to any of you. Someone else's love never does. It is all just pretty words that can't ever come close to really expressing how safe I feel in his arms, how beautiful I feel when he is at my side, how I live with the new knowledge of being perfectly loved every moment of every day. There is no way to truly tell you how very much I am in love. But today of all days I felt the need to try anyway.

Happy birthday, my love, my heart. You still take my breath away. You have made every dream I ever had come true.

And then some.