Friday, November 4, 2016

Different Worlds

I've had a lot of time to think recently. This year has certainly been a rollercoaster. The past few months, especially so. I guess I thought that moving would magically make my life better and that everything would magically fall into place. I'd find a job fairly quickly, because, I mean after all the shit I've been through the last coupe years, something has to go right for me now! Right?

I was pretty depressed when after moving things seemed to get worse for me, and definitely not better. There was a period of several weeks where I really didn't want to do anything, let alone leave the apartment. But, slowly I am getting better. Having two interviews this week helped.

One nice thing is that since I basically have nothing to do, I have lots of time to call Alex. Last month we talked for 953 minutes! And then there were a a period of about 5 days where he had money on his phone and we could text. OMG! So effing awesome to be able to text! To be able to send pictures, videos, and just feel connected.

This does come with a downside, however. It makes me feel his absence even more keenly than I already did.

I find myself longing for him constantly. I think about him constantly. I realize constantly that I have no idea when, if ever, I will see him again. As if by some cruel twist of fate, I have all the time in the world right now to go and visit him, but no money. And when (please God, soon!) I have a job, I will have money, but no time to visit.

Why is it that the universe seems to want to keep us apart?

I think this is why we never pursued anything in the past. When we met, I was 17 and he was 20. It was just 7 years after the fall of the Soviet Union. Even though we had an instant connection, and even though I was in love after about two months, and even though after I left he realized that he loved me, it just seemed like an impossible situation. I mean, growing up in the Soviet Union he never thought he would meet someone from the US, let alone fall in love. And it was somewhat absurd to think that an American girl and a Belarusian boy could make a life together.

So we moved on.

But I... we,  never really moved on.

I was never sure how he felt, he says he didn't realize how I felt, but we wrote letters for ten years! Ten years! A year after I'd been back in the states (always trying to figure out a way to go back) he even came and visited me in Kiev. I received a desperate sounding phone call a while after Kiev where he said to me that he wished I could "be his wife", but silly me, I didn't think anyone could possibly ever want that, and as fate would have it, when I tried to call him back, the call wouldn't go through.

He never mentioned that again, so we moved on.

Then, for a few years I started letters all the time (I still find notepads with letters that I had started, now), but somehow, they just never made it to the mail. I never heard from him, either. Then, in December 2013 I decided that I absolutely had to send him a New Year's card.

And I did.

And I got back the most excited letter. EVER.

We started writing again. I discovered I could text him through Skype, but he couldn't text me. I could call him through Skype, but it was not cheap. After a few months I discovered the International plan for Verizon and signed up. That gave me a 1000 minutes a month to call.

Long story, short--I visited, had my heart broken. We moved forward. He proposed. I visited again. It was rocky, but ended very well.

Fast forward to present...

I have been trying for a year to gather the paperwork to start the K-1 visa process. Finally, when I have everything together, I lose my job. I can't prove that I can provide for him when I am unemployed.

So here we are...waiting...in limbo...again...

I believe that we both needed to grow up and mature before we came back together and decided we wanted to build a life together, but since I am now buried in student loan debt, and even though I would like to go over there, I can't, because if he can't find study work, how am I going to find work that pays enough to make my loan payments. He doesn't really want to live in the States, but since that is pretty much our only option, he is willing to try.

I just feel that nothing works out for us. I feel like the universe is against us.

Part of me is taken back to those early days. Like Anna and the King, we are from different worlds and no matter how much we love each other, it's just not meant to be. (I don't really believe that, it's just the depression and hormones...)

Well, I really hope that a year from now we'll have made some progress. I'm not getting any younger.






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