Shakespeare was wrong....

....parting is NOT sweet sorrow. Ugh. Peter spent a month here in Asia, which also overlapped with the visits of my two best friends from grad school. As usual, time went by entirely too quickly and both Peter and my friend K. departed yesterday (my friend R. is here until the 16th, but she is currently at the beach with her brother and sister-in-law. R. celebrated her 30th birthday out here, and her bro and sis-in-law decided that they love and adore R. enough to travel halfway around the world in order to also celebrate her birthday. How awesome is that??).

"Bliss" is about the only word that aptly describes the past month. Peter and I bounced around from place to place--Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Bali, Bangkok, Krabi, with Peter then taking a side trip with a friend to Cambodia--and had a BLAST. My friends and I reconnected over coconut cocktails and karaoke, and it was so nice to feel loved and supported and to take a break from the occasional isolation of my life out here. Being surrounded by my friends and Peter helped me to strengthen my belief in myself, to realize the futility of worry, and to see Asia through a fresh pair of eyes.

Peter and I knew what we were in for when things started getting serious. Being in a relationship with me meant being on two different continents for two years. Back when we were both in Cambridge, we sort of danced around the "what are we going to do?" question until one day, on one particular street corner, we finally had The Talk. We did the math: two years, two continents, several thousand dollars worth of plane tickets and calling cards, an 11 hour time difference, dozens of "what the hell are you thinking?" questions raised by friends and other assorted loved ones, stacked against six months of casual dating and three months of serious dating. In the end, it was truly a no-brainer. We were going to do this and come out the other side TOGETHER. There was never a "let's see" option, never a "I'll go my way, you go yours, and we'll see if we come back together at the end" conversation.

Our relationship has only gotten stronger during this first year apart, and we are motivated and energized for the year ahead. And we have been through a lot, and we have missed each other TERRIBLY, but I know that we wouldn't want it any other way. Peter just, y'know, makes everything better. For various reasons, I have not exactly "nested" in my condo (i.e. I don't reeeeally feel at home in my condo because I'm not allowed to put any nails in the walls or access rooms other than my bedroom and common areas, and the place is also SO HUGE and very sterile....however, it is RENT-FREE!! Oh, and the fact that I spend the majority of my time out and about exploring Asia and therefore see my condo as mainly a place to sleep and watch pirated DVDs). As a result, I come home every day to vast expanses of eye-fryingly white walls, illuminated ever-so-delicately by blazing fluorescent lights (um, not MY color or light of choice, thankyouverymuch). Things are frequently in need of fixing, and most of the light bulbs in my bedroom have burned out. Peter looked around, assessed the situation, and told me that he wants me to be happy and cozy in my house. He knows that a nest is important to me, and that I'll be better able to handle the ups and downs that the next year will bring if I have a lovely place to hang my hat. And while I have acquired a multitude of beautiful things for feathering my nest over the last year, many of them have remained in plastic bags and closets.

So Peter got to work: he changed my light bulbs, bought a drying rack (so that I no longer have to use, um, the living room furniture to dry my clothes), purchased and assembled some BEAUTIFUL lamps, rode in the back of a pick-up truck in order to transport a large plumeria tree from Cayla and JJ's balcony to mine, and hung up a ton of stuff: my Thai style fairy lights, the four paintings that he bought for me in Cambodia, the beautiful photograph that was taken by my friend JJ, the batik painting that I made in Bali, my good luck gecko, and the STUNNING green batik sarong that we also purchased in Bali. The icing on this amazing cake?? He bought me a Chang replacement (which I named Chang Song, or Elephant #2 in Thai) that we will take all over the world with us in our many journeys ahead.

Right now the long distance sucks, and it will probably take me a few weeks before I can look around at all of the improvements in the condo without bursting into tears. But it also feels like part of him is still there with me. I sent a few pieces of art (which require nails and are therefore forbidden from the condo) back with him so that we can slowly begin feathering the nest we will build together. He told me that he would hang them up, and that they, like him, would be waiting patiently for me to return.