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.

all good things...

This is my last night in Canada.


I don't really know what to say, other than that. My whole world is about to change, in a very literal sense. And I still can't really get a grasp on what that means to me, even though it all happens tomorrow.

The thing is, I love being a Canadian. And I suppose that that in itself will not change. I will always be a Canadian even if, three years down the line, I pass the test for citizenship in my new chosen country.

But I also love living in Canada. The well-defined seasons have always been a way of marking the course of my life. And winter, here in Southern Manitoba - it is a thing to behold, and not for the faint of heart, or the easily chilled. I will miss the snow, the cold. Yes, even the days when it is -35 and you can feel the frosty air turn to crystals inside your nose. How will it ever be Christmas again if I can't look out the window Christmas morning to see three feet of snow on the ground?

I love how Canadians are regarded in the world. We may often be thought of with a bemused smile and a tolerant chuckle, the kind you have for your four-year old little sister wanting to tag along with the big boys. But who out there really thinks badly of us? Or even hates us? We may not be a big player in the grand scheme of things, but we hold our heads high (or, at least blush bashfully) at knowing that the world at large is indifferent towards us. And maybe even like us a little.

There are so many things I will miss here. Things that if you asked me two years ago, I may not have been able to contemplate living without.

So much has changed in these past two years.

My life has been one of very little change. I have lived with my parents my whole life. I have lived in the same house for 33 years. I have not had a career, a family, a life to really call my own. My job was to make it through each day, and the pain each new day brought, with my sanity and sense of humour intact. Most days I managed that. Many days I even managed it with a smile still on my face.

And then I met him. My Guy. And he changed everything. Absolutely everything.

I am leaving behind my friends, my family, my home, my country. Dropping everything to be where he is, to move across the world, adopt a whole new country, and soon a whole new name.

I expected to be nervous. To be scared of going into the unknown, moving to a country I have never even visited before. I expected to be sad at all the partings, saying goodbye to so many people that I have no real expectation of ever seeing again. I will go from seeing my parents every day for the past 36 years, to seeing them maybe once every couple of years.

But here's the thing. I am not scared. I am not nervous. I am not even particularly sad -certainly not as sad as my family seems to expect me to be. I can't be. Not any of it.

Because I know what I am going to. I may not know what strange foods I may find on the grocery store shelves in place of my familiar favourites. Or what it will be like to experience winter with more rain than snow. Or how I will manage to spend Christmas at someone else's mother's house. Or how odd it will feel to sit on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road. Or any of the thousands of other changes and differences that I haven't even been able to imagine yet. But none of that matters.

I am going to be with My Guy. The man who finally brought love into my life. Someone who makes me feel beautiful when I am in his presence. A man with more patience, tolerance, compassion and caring than I ever knew existed in this world. Someone who loves me as much as I love him - and for whom I have more love than I ever thought it was possible for one human heart to hold. And that is enough for me to know. Everything else will come with time. But he is over there in England waiting for me. So that's where I'm going.

I'm coming home, sweetness. Be there soon.