Grateful

Tonight I'm really grateful.

Grateful for the aunts, uncles, cousins, mom, dad and friends who have been Skyping, texting, Facebook messaging and phoning me to see how I am, how my cough is doing, where the boyfriend is, how the house is, how the weather is, how the kids are behaving, how I'm living.

I'm grateful for the concern, the GENUINE worry, that they had when I landed in a foreign country, into the hands of total strangers.

I'm grateful for the people who tell me regularly that they miss me. And I hope they know that I cry with heartache and joy every time I write to them. Because I miss them too.

And most deeply, most bewilderingly, I am grateful for this most unexpected gift. Most people have family. Most people even have decent friends (I have fabulous ones, though). But in this broken world few people have a love that leaves them breathless.

I am one of the lucky ones. Call it luck. Call it fate. Call it the benevolence of some bearded god with maybe a Moleskin planner and an eye for detail. Call it irony.

But I've found the man of my dreams. And all these dreams I've had, of us on the streets of Bristol, in the coffee shops with hands entwined...All my dreams are coming true. Right now. This, THIS now is the future.   I am living inside last year's daydreams. As the adrenaline and endorphins cruise through my body and cause me to palpitate, as I stretch across the M32 and the A370, no matter what distances and heights challenge us, we are living our dream.

To every person who has supported me, or him, or both of us  - I hope that you too, in 2012, will be living your dreams :)