Packed and Prepped

Yesterday's blog, as my sister suggested, was perhaps a little unhinged.

Yesterday was without doubt the toughest day I've had here so far - at the end of the holiday but without actually going home.

My emotions increased in a rather wobbly upwards spiral until they reached their peak yesterday evening when I collapsed into a big teary mess. However two large glasses and an immense amount of bread and rice later, I was feeling a bit better and we'd done a significant amount of time - past, present and future - dissecting to make me focus less on the change I was about to experience and more on the bigger picture.

My boyfriend told me last night how much it had meant to him that I came out to see him and how much he has loved having me here. Probably a really obvious thing but it made me realise why I'm going through all this, why in those moments when I think 'what's in my boyfriend's training for me?', in those selfish dark lonely moments when I can't seem to rationalise what I'm getting out of my boyfriend training and being apart from me for 18 months.

What I'm getting out of all this is my boyfriend's happiness.

Before I came out things were difficult. He'd experienced a fire and living in accommodation that is only mildly more desirable than a leaky tent in the middle of winter. His training was extremely tough. We couldn't phone, skype or email regularly.

Now I am leaving him in beautiful new accommodation with an en suite shower, internet and telephone in his room (no excuse!), the ability to make beans on toast in his room, surrounded by good people and flying a lot.

He said to me last night that he felt sure we were over the worst. I disagreed, because we've said that time and time again during the course of his application and his move out here. But then I know he's right. I was just scared of trusting that.

My time here has flown and dragged, in waves. I've done my best to try to not just wait or kill time until I see him, and I feel proud of my achievements. I've done things I never would have considered, I've travelled an awful lot alone, something that I never wanted to do but it was a case of see it alone or don't see it.

This past month is a million strands of memory that are tangled at the moment, all in one big New Zealand knot. It is sat at the top of my throat and at the forefront of my mind. Yesterday I failed spectacularly to control it and hold it back.

He will be home soon and we will begin the rest of our last day. And I feel - at this moment - okay. My emotions did their very best in attempting to ruin my evening (and my make up) last night before I managed to subdue them with alcohol and my boyfriend soothed them with telling me how happy he'd been having me here.

That's what's important. Not that I'm going, but that I came out and I made him happy.

I have had a wonderful time here. I have seen beautiful things and between us we have been a part of memories that photographs and thoughts will trigger an extraction of that string for many years to come. We have found ourselves back together.

So beneath all the worry and the fear and the aching, there it is. That's what it's all about.