#Believe

Shortly after Randy and I met and began to realize our feelings for each other and consider the possibility of a future together, I went away for the weekend.

It was a weekend that had already been planned and that I wasn’t able to back out of. In retrospect, I probably should have, but nevertheless, I went. It was a desperate weekend of sorts; one filled with manic text messages when I found a signal to fill the void of the inability to make phone calls. (how is that possible AT&T???)

The circumstances of the weekend were crazy enough, but mix in snow, dropped calls, and intense feelings and it’s surprising I didn’t spontaneously combust.

I had prepped Randy for the weekend (maybe more for myself) – the fact that I might not have the ability to have any communication with him for the entire time, convinced it would be 48+ hours without contact… but as soon as I was able to try it out, I was texting and trying to connect with him.

I missed him. In spite of the fact that we had never seen each other face-to-face, and the fact that we were no further apart geographically than we had ever been in our entire lives, I felt more alone than ever and further from him than I thought possible.

It blew my mind. I wasn’t expecting that. I knew I was in love with him. I knew that our feelings were real. But I didn’t expect to feel that lost all weekend.

How in the world was it possible to feel more disconnected from him at this time, than if I’d been at home texting him?

I don’t know what it was. I can’t begin to sift through my mind and figure it out, but it was a feeling that was so intense and so real, that my chest felt like it would it explode upon my return on Sunday night. I couldn’t dial his number quickly enough.

I recognized it. He heard it in my voice. And I heard it in his.

It was a turning point. We had already felt it, but we finally admitted it to each other: we determined then to not be apart. It was too much. In spite of the fact that we had always been apart, and had never been together, face-to-face, we knew it was real.

(I snapped these photos to send him as I walked the trails and cleared my head. It snowed a lot that weekend and it was really cold. Appropriate. This was the weekend that Randy bombarded me with photos of himself. I’d been asking for it – trying to put pieces together. Amazingly, in spite of the fact that we were unable to make phone calls, we pretty much blew up each others phones sending photos and sending text messages.)