Normally on Tuesdays I bring to you a travel post post, but I am in Wales this week for our 10th Anniversary. I thought it only fitting that I let my cohost for the #TravelTuesday blog hop, an Expat living in Northern Wales, guest post! Belinda from Found Love. Now What? I am proud to call my friend, even though we have yet to meet in person. It is not hard to fall in love with her when you read her blog or watch her Vlogs. She has an infectious smile, a warm bubbly personality, and never falls short with the compliments. She has traveled the world, has gone through a Long Distance Relationship (LDR), and now lives the adventure known as being an Expat. I could only hope she would say ‘yes’ when I asked her to guest post and was so happy when replied back enthusiastically. I was so excited to share this post with you all as it is so honest and full of heart. Thank you so much Belinda. I do not know if I say it enough, but I really do thank you for everything you have done for me and have done for us as a blogger community. You have definitely impacted my life for the better and I am glad to call you friend.
Greetings A Compass Rose readers, my name is Belinda and I am the girl behind the blog, Found Love. Now What? When Bonnie invited me to guest post for her Week of Love, I jumped at the chance. After all, my blog has love in the title…so it was a perfect match.
Love. Just that word alone swells a million little emotions and memories,making it tough for me to pick just one element of love to write about. Where to start? What should I focus on? A love between a parent and child? Between siblings? Between friends? Husband and wife? And how do you know when it is there? Or if it is real? Now, these are questions that have been asked by humans for years upon years. I won’t be discovering new answers any time soon. But here is what I know: Love can change people.
Love can move mountains, or make the impossible seem possible. Or in my case, close the distance of 5,000 miles. You see, my British husband Neal and I were in a international long distance relationship for over 18 months, the entire time that we were dating up until our wedding last May. And I wouldn’t have been able to make it through the days apart, without keeping my mind on the bigger picture having everyday with my love. I got to the point when I needed a visual reminder for what it was all for. All the tears, all the compromises, all the frustrations and countless goodbyes at airports. On my dry erase board in my old apartment I scribble two simple words:
When I was apart from Neal, and my heart was aching I looked at these two words and it refocused my heart and my energy. I knew that the distance part was only for the short term and I would have a million everydays together. As each day went by, we were one step closer from removing the distance and finally be in the same time zone. {Major moment, right?}
I was often asked by friends or family, “How do you do this… navigating the distance?” My reply was always a simple shrug and a smile. If navigation a long distance love was the challenge set forth by me, I would embrace it fully and with open arms. I always kept life in complete perspective. Each time left Neal’s side at the airport, I knew where he was going and how to get a hold of him. Our distance made me have a whole new appreciation for military families who are parted from their loved ones without many details or certainty.
{Sidenote: If you are a member of a military family, my heart sincerely and humbly thanks you.}
Reflecting on my time going from a long distance girl friend/fiance and now wife, I have learned a few lessons, but the biggest is that love is far from perfect. Love isn’t perfectly wrapped like a present, sometimes love is messy and inconvenient and challenging, but in the end beyond worth it. I met in Neal in a bar in New York City one hot and humid evening. I was on a work trip, while he was on holiday. We struck up a conversation, had one too many beers, and I left him my card. I never thought in a million years, that I would ever hear back from Neal. But I did. And from that first e-mail, my life has been transformed and evolved all through the power of love.
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I wanted to share with you one of the readings from our wedding that highlighted the transforming power of love and how it can be our destiny:
From The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
“When he looked into her dark eyes, and saw that her lips were poised between a laugh and silence, he learned the most important part of the language that all the world spoke — the language that everyone on earth was capable of understanding in their heart. It was love. Something older than humanity, more ancient than the desert. Something that exerted the same force whenever two pairs of eyes met, as had theirs here at the well. She smiled, and that was certainly an omen — the omen he had been awaiting, without even knowing he was, for all his life. The omen he had sought to find with his sheep and in his books, in the crystals and in the silence of the desert.
It was the pure Language of the World. It required no explanation, just as the universe needs none as it travels through endless time. What the boy felt at that moment was that he was in the presence of the only woman in his life, and that, with no need for words, she recognized the same thing. He was more certain of it than of anything in the world. He had been told by his parents and grandparents that he must fall in love and really know a person before becoming committed. But maybe people who felt that way had never learned the universal language. Because, when you know that language, it’s easy to understand that someone in the world awaits you, whether it’s in the middle of the desert or in some great city. And when two such people encounter each other, and their eyes meet, the past and the future become unimportant. There is only that moment, and the incredible certainty that everything under the sun has been written by one hand only. It is the hand that evokes love, and creates a twin soul for every person in the world. Without such love, one’s dreams would have no meaning.”
Of all the things in the world I believe in, I believe in love the most, without question and without fail. Love that rocks you to your core. Love that challenges you to be a better person. Love that has you grown and change all the way through your life. I also believe in loving your everyday moments… to cherish them and appreciate them with all of your heart. Thank you darling Bonnie for including me in your wonderful Love Week. Many wishes on your vow renewal and your marriage in the upcoming years!
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