It’s April already. That means in less than three months, B should come up here and visit.
Less than three months... that doesn’t sound so far. Not at all... especially time flies fast, July will be just around the corner and the next thing I know it should be the date when he comes over. It should be an awesome week to have my birthday. It should be the time when we would finally do whatever we want together. And I should be excited... less than three months, right. I should feel so many things actually like a little bit of pleasure, a tad bit of worry, a cursory of thrill. But I don’t. Not yet. Not when at the present moment he doesn’t even have a passport to get out of the US border to cross to Canada.
I bet you that whoever coined the phrases “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” and “Absence makes the heart forget” were in long distance relationships and one was cut for it and the other wasn’t. In either which case though, absence makes the heart forlorn and wanting relentlessly to be with the one you love. When days become increasingly unbearable for me, my mind often ponder on time when people didn’t have these nifty technology to communicate to the people they love but are miles and miles apart. They right letters and it takes weeks before they get a reply, if they get any. Some times that gives me comfort. Some times it doesn’t.
Like his plan to come and see me on my birthday. Even from the beginning I hadn’t been pining for it. Friends often ask when is he coming over and I give the same answer every time, “July. That’s the plan”. But I don’t gush and get all gooey eyed when I say it. B used to always tell me that I need to have faith. Over time, I have developed a stronger faith in us and our future together. With my whole consciousness I am fully aware that that future is not set in stone, not clear cut, not definite, not well-defined, not black and white, not cut and dried. Yet despite the amorphous shape of this “future” I believe in it, I believe it will happen, I believe it is meant to happen. Sure I don’t know when, I don’t know how. But why it will happen is suffice to make me believe that eventually B and me will be together and be physically close everyday of our lives.
So maybe I don’t think that he will be able to make it in time for my birthday. Or that the plan to come here on July is not really even 90% feasible. Because the truth is plans change. Plans do not always come to be. Plans are revised, rewritten, drafted over and over. Plans are subject to approval, requirements, prerequisites, budget, even the weather. And even the best laid plans are cancelled the last minute. After all nothing is certain in life but death.
Despite the uncertainty of the plan to come here, once in awhile I look at the countdown app in my phone and see how many days it’ll be before B’s visit. I don’t worry that he isn’t coming, I don’t plan what we will do when he gets here, I don’t try to predict if things will turn out the way we want it. Because all those things won’t cushion the blow or make it easier or get things done faster or make it sooner. The future is always changing. The future is the home of my deepest fears and wildest hopes. And over time I’ve learned that one thing is certain, when it finally reveals itself... the future is never the way we imagine it.
So...I may know that the idea of him being able to get here in time is not certain, but that is not going to stop me from feeling hopeful that it may occur and even better than I’ve conceived.
