My Love Story, Chapter five

I returned to Chicago one week after Simon proposed. When I got there, I had two weeks to spend with my friends and family before I took off for Sydney. It was really hard to say goodbye, especially because I was still catching up with them after two months away in Europe.

I've been living with Simon for almost five months now. We're incredibly happy and he makes me feel like I can do things I never thought I could, like share my writing with other people. We have the same quirks as other couples-- I take up the entire bed, Simon chuckles in his sleep. I beg Simon to come home from work early to hang out with me, he sends me text messages saying he misses me when we've only been away from each other for an hour. I make him watch True Blood, he's got me watching How I Met Your Mother. I pack him lunches in the morning, he helps me with my homework. We're getting married in June, after we move back to Chicago. Its going to be a small wedding in a garden and I cannot wait to marry the love of my life and be with him forever. We're very lucky; even though we've been through a lot of hard times to get to where we are and I'm sure there will be more obstacles in the future, I don't think everybody experiences love like we have and we're very thankful to have found each other.

My Love Story, Chapter four

I was off to Europe for the summer with my best friend.  If I had to spend my time doing something while I waited to be with Simon again, this was the best way to spend it. Lisa and I were off to Germany, Ireland, Slovakia, France, and England- I was going to be as distracted from missing Simon as I possibly could be, and that was a good thing.. except that I wasn't. Even though I was having an amazing time, I still missed Simon. He made it a bit easier, sending me sweet e-mails and letters to each country as soon as I arrived. He even sent me a sweater of his while I was in France because summer just wouldn't come (it never came, we recently picked it up from the post office in Sydney). It made no difference though, I was still upset. I hung out in clubs alone while Lisa met foreign, exotic men and fell asleep wishing Simon was falling asleep next to me.

Then it occurred to me, Simon was going to show up. It was just like something he would do.  He surprised me at my house in March when we barely knew each other, why wouldn't he do it now? So I kept my eyes open everywhere in case he jumped out from behind a corner. I made a task of bugging Lisa about it, in case she'd drop any hints. I whined to Simon constantly about how much I missed him and couldn't spend another second without him. But it wasn't happening. Simon wasn't hiding in the Memorial to the Murdered Jews, he wasn't strolling down the Champs Elysee, he wasn't  in Europe at all. By my last weekend in Paris, I realized he wasn't coming. Simon had a business trip in Melbourne and when he didn't show up 48 hours after he left, I realized that he wasn't showing up at all. I stopped looking for him, I stopped bothering Lisa, and got back to enjoying my trip before it was too late.

On June 18th, Lisa and I went for a picnic in the Parc de Belleville in Paris. We brought salads and chatted, mostly about how we missed our friends. After being there for about an hour, Lisa told me she invited somebody and hoped I didn't mind. I turned around and there he was. It was like a dream, Simon had shown up in Paris. Before I realized what I was doing, I was running and jumping into his arms. I hugged and kissed him for a few minutes before I even let him speak. When I finally gave him some room to breathe, he got down on one knee and started talking. In my rage of excitement, I have no idea what he said. But he asked me to marry him. Instead of answering, I sat right down on his lap and started kissing him more. Finally, it  dawned on me that his question required an answer and I said yes.

Lisa was there to take pictures of all of it. She also noticed that I was wearing horrible blue nail polish and brought remover and some nice nail polish to fix my fingers before we took pictures of the ring.

We spent the remainder of Simon's time in Paris together (48 hours.. he flew for 60, what a guy) drinking wine at the Eiffel Tower, eating pizza across from the Notre Dame, enjoying the view from the Sacre Couer-- it was an incredibly romantic weekend and I am the luckiest girl who ever lived.

My Love Story, Chapter three

Somehow, we survived the month apart. With lots of skype, mailed gifts and emails, we came through unscathed and Simon came back to me; this time I had him for two weeks! He had work training in Fort Myers in April, so I met him there for the weekend and he came to Chicago after training. Since I had the chance to plan this time, I was able to take him to his first Cubs game, first college town, the Sears Tower, even his first time at the Cheesecake Factory. These two weeks were even better than last time, but once they were over.. Simon was going to be away for even longer.

We planned that I would visit for a month in July, he would come back for some time in October, I'd go back to him in December, and we'd figure it out from there. But it wasn't enough; that meant a lot more time apart than we'd have together. We tried to figure out a better plan, but it seemed impossible. Simon had a yearlong work contract and I had a scholarship to fulfill; there was no way for either of us to move to be with each other. Until Simon took a better look at my scholarship. Within one year of graduation, I had to begin teaching special education in the state of Illinois and complete two years of teaching within five years of graduation. Well, that gave me a year.

So I broke the news to my family, and lets not begin to pretend that was easy. Nobody was happy with me; I was single-handedly responsible for breaking my family's hearts. So did I stay? I couldn't. I could not wait a year to be with the love of my life full time. So I made the decision, I was going move to Sydney until Simon's work contract was up. But I was scheduled to leave for two month Europe trip before then. If we could make it through that.. we'd be set.

My Love Story, Chapter two

So, Simon King was really in my bedroom. The man I'd been chatting with for two months was no longer living in my computer, he was real and sitting a meter away from me and I still had a project to finish and school in the morning. So I did my best to focus on my work, checking every 15-30 seconds that Simon was still sitting in the pink, fuzzy chair behind me and hadn't disappeared back into my computer where he usually hid.

I planned to keep his arrival quiet so that I could have him to myself, at least for that night. But of course my excitement got the best of me and I changed my Facebook status to share my utter joy of this event. Seconds later, Lisa begged to come over and I had to share Simon for about an hour.. she, too, could barely believe that he was really here. I didn't get a minute of sleep that night, for fear that it would all turn into a dream and Simon would disappear.

The next day at school was excruciating, I had dropped Simon off at Lisa's and was calling during every break to make sure that he was still alive and hadn't escaped (this went on all week, I'm surprised nobody called me out for being the psycho I was). I made it home in record time to pick Simon up so that I could soak up every minute I had with him. Of course, it was Lisa's birthday so I had to share him with her family, and I did not take well to sharing Simon that week. That night, after we'd gotten home and were laying in bed, I couldn't take it anymore. I was bursting with love, but it was going to be insane if I admitted that after less than 48 hours together. So I hinted around with a "There's something I really want to tell you, but I think its a little bit crazy..." and before I could finish, Simon said "I love you. I fell in love with you when I saw you at the top of the stairs."

That was the highlight of my life up until that point. The man of my dreams told me he loved me, I wasn't the only crazy person in this relationship because he loved me too. I was set, I knew I never wanted to lay my eyes on another man for as long as I lived. I didn't want to spend even a second away from him.. but I didn't really have a choice. I had school all week and Simon was leaving on Sunday (only five and a half days with him and I had school on three of them). I got really possessive the rest of that week; I got mad at Lisa for building a snow man with him, scolded Wesley for keeping him at the pool hall for too long, and refused to take him to meet pretty much anybody because that took away time I had alone with him.

The rest of the week was a blur, it went by way too fast. Simon unsuccessfully made his first snow angel, I took him out for some of America's most gourmet cuisine (Uno's Deep Dish and Hooter's), I taught Simon what an ice scraper was, he nearly froze to death a few times, he met my dad in his pajamas while I was at school, I took him to the Art Institute, and we learned that we couldn't live without each other.

That Sunday was the first of a series of three worst days of my life. I had to take him to O'hare Airport to fly back to Australia. Watching Simon walk into that terminal was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I pulled over three times on the way home because I couldn't see through the tears anymore.  How was I going to be apart from him until April?

My Love Story, Chapter one

In December of 2009, my friend had some Australians he'd met on a study abroad trip come stay with him for the winter holidays. With Christmas, New Years, and the dread of my 22nd birthday clouding my December, I didn't really need anything else to make my month exciting. But on that night when I got a call saying I should hurry up and get to Sara's house for drinks with the Aussie boys, you better believe I hightailed it over. I mean, prior to that December evening, the only Aussie accent I remember hearing was that of the late Steve Irwin and I had been single for the past two years.

This had the makings of a great night. So off I went, and to make a long story short-- only one Aussie was single and my best friend, Lisa, beat me to the punch. So much for hearing sweet nothings whispered in my ear by a beautiful accent, it was time for me to go back to searching around good old Chicago while my best friend kept me up to date with her second international love affair of 2009.

So I listened to the daily reports of International Love Affair #2, slowly losing interest when Lisa began telling me about Simon, the funny best friend she started talking to over Facebook after he made a snide remark about a photo of her and her Australian crush. To be honest, I was still only half interested in her conversations with Simon, as I was still a little bitter about her knack for meeting men with incredible accents.

A few weeks went by and I got a friend request from Simon. I added him out of curiosity and he sent me a chat soon after; something along the lines of "I was just adding people that my friends met overseas" (a likely story if he had added anybody besides Lisa and myself). Simon was a guy that I had never met and was most likely never going to meet, so I spent a minute or two contemplating even writing him back. As fate would have it, I took a chance and returned a chat message to Simon, thinking that if Lisa thought he was so funny, maybe I should give him a chance.

A week or two went by, and I was talking to Simon daily. I found myself rushing home from school to talk to him and getting jealous when Lisa told me about their conversations. I went out and bought an iTouch so that I could lay in bed and talk to him more comfortably. This was getting ridiculous, I'd never even heard Simon's beautiful Australian accent and I was already hanging on his every word.

A few weeks into our friendship, Simon moved and didn't have internet at his new apartment. This was devastating for me. Who was I going to talk to after school? I was no longer interested in face-to-face conversations; I needed to talk to my new best friend from across the globe. To solve this problem, I proposed a game of 20 questions through inbox messages. This soon became a game of probably 400 questions and I was pouring my heart out to a someone who I'd only ever seen pictures of (and not many at that, Simon's facebook wasn't nearly as extensive as it is now).

The time had come. It was time to skype Simon. I went out and bought a webcam from Office Depot and decided to test it out with Lisa. Simon came online while Lisa and I were chatting and I realized that I was way too nervous to talk to him on my own. So I ran and fixed my hair, and with Lisa on the line for moral support, I was going to Skype call him. Well, I'd fixed my hair for nothing because the video feature on skype doesn't work with more than two people on the line. But all was not lost, I finally got to hear his voice.  And I was done for. I knew right then and there, while Simon cheated his way through the fifty states game, that I needed to meet this boy. That weekend, I got all dolled up to go out on Friday night, bought a bottle of South Australian Chardonnay, and Lisa and I made a video message for Simon. After four or five takes, it was done and we sent Simon the video the next morning. At that point, I couldn't wait another second for him to see the video and profess his undying love for me (thats all it takes, right? just a 90 second  video...). Well, Simon still didn't have internet so I waited until he went to work the following Monday for him to watch. Apparently he needed more than 90 seconds of me saying "hi" and speaking Robot for him to get down on one knee. Simon finally got internet soon after and we started skyping everyday when I got home from school (about 5am for Simon) until it was way past my bedtime. We knew that we had something here and Simon kept tricking me into thinking he was going to hop on a plane and show up on my doorstep, only to find out that the tickets were going to be $2000.

At the end of February, Simon told me that his boss was going to take away his cell and internet connection so that he could work on a spread sheet and he'd talk to me when he finished. Again, I was devastated, I couldn't go all afternoon without talking to Simon. By the next morning, I was itching to talk to him, I had probably sent him 6 messages telling him I was going to call the Australian police if he didn't write me back soon. Luckily, I had a job fair that day down at ISU and a project due the next day, so I'd be pretty busy and maybe it was a good thing Simon wasn't around.

I got home from the job fair at about five, and decided to go straight home to work on my project. At about nine o'clock that night, I heard a knock on my door (this never happens, my mom and I pretty much have no visitors on weeknights and Wesley's friends go hang out in the garage). When my mom got up and asked who it was, I heard that beautiful voice, "It's Simon... from Australia". Well, wow. Either I was hallucinating or Simon had really flown 22 hours just to see me... in my pajamas. What was I supposed to do now? I could run down stairs, but that might be too eager. I could stay in my room and pretend I didn't hear the door, but that might make it awkward for Simon and my mom. So I stood frozen at the top of the stairs, staring at Simon for a good 30 seconds before I snapped out of it and went to give him a hug.

Why I'm Here

Its 10:32pm in Sydney on November 4th, 2010. I've been playing with the idea of starting a blog since about April so I guess sneaking out of bed tonight to start was a long time coming. I've always enjoyed writing but it always seemed a private thing to me, so this blog is going to be my first time sharing my writing with anybody (excluding my previous English teachers and Simon, who I wrote a story for earlier this year). The reason its taken me so long to get this blog up and running is that I couldn't think of anything particularly interesting to write about... Well, I spent the majority of my summer in Europe with my best friend, got engaged in Paris to an Australian I'd spent a grand total of 3 weeks face-to-face with prior to the proposal, and picked up and moved to Sydney for about 9 months. If I don't have anything to write about now, I don't deserve a pen for the rest of my life.

I'm going to start with my love story. I'm not sure how long its going to be so I'm going to write it in chapters. If you can't handle the suspense, visit my wedding website (www.mywedding.com/simonlovesholly) for a synopsis.