Don't hold it against me
December 24, 2006
This morning I woke up with a bit of a heavy feeling in my stomach. I rolled over, checked my phone�no text messages, no missed calls. Nothing.
I closed my eyes and tried to go back to sleep. Images from thirteen�which I�d been wanting to see for a long time and which I finally saw last night�kept running through my head, interspersed with visions of a poofy-haired, blue-eyed boy nodding off on a bus, somewhere in the middle of the Sinai.
Finally I forced myself out of bed, made some coffee, got ready for work. It�s been a long time since I�ve felt this gnawing in my stomach�the feeling of missing someone but also being alternately worried and annoyed that they haven�t called or given you any indication that they�re still alive and thinking of you.
Just as I stepped out of my building on my way to work I received a single-word text message: �Gamila!� (�Beautiful!�)
�Who/what�s gamila?� I responded, thinking he might be expressing his first impressions of Petra, Jordan.
�Enty gamila!� (�You are.�)
Stupidly, those two words were all I needed to see. Oh, how the mighty and smugly self-validating have fallen.
We spent the rest of the morning texting back and forth. They were mostly reassurances from him when he reached the Israeli border then got through the checkpoints, (�You�d be drooling over here! Will try and get pictures of some hot Israeli border guards in the backgrounds of my photos.��isn�t he the sweetest?), and finally got on yet another bus heading towards Petra.
Depending on how travel goes it could be anywhere from 5 to 11 days until I see him next.
When we started this thing I made him promise that he�d give me my space, and not expect to spend all his time with me. But in our first couple months together we will actually have spent up to 4 weeks apart. I think it�s safe to say that we spent way more time together before we started dating. That�s a little too much space for my liking.
Allow me to say again, how the mighty and once smugly independent have fallen.
And now, before both you and I drown in this sea of sappy, schmooey sweetness, allow me to wish the Christmas-celebrating among you a merry and happy one.