two years later

August 28, 2012.

Around 2 am, I found myself staring at the computer screen and my heart was pounding out of my chest. Markus and I had talked for months about seeing each other again. But for so many months, the plane ticket prices were outrageous. The first few weeks of August I watched as the plane ticket from Denmark to Georgia slowly dropped from $1200… $1,050… $880. Knowing what I know now about how expensive a plane ticket is, I can’t believe I didn’t buy the $880 ticket right then and there. I watched the prices fall. I didn’t buy the ticket. At 2 am, after getting off work, I opened up my computer to check for the thousandth time. Staring at me like headlights from a Mack truck was a ticket that would bring Markus to Georgia for $638. I bought it without thinking another thought, without telling Markus.

The next day, I still didn’t tell my sweet Markus. He knew that the prices had gone down, but I lied. I lied to him and told him that the prices had risen again before I had bought the ticket. What he didn’t know was that in the mail was a copy of his ticket with excited hand-written scribbled words on the top: “How about a coffee date in person?” I waited a painstakingly-long ten days for him to get his letter. I didn’t even tell him he had a letter coming in the mail. The day he opened it, he was sitting at his mom’s kitchen’s table talking to her while she made dinner. Markus absentmindedly opened the letter, looked down, and seeing the copy of his flight itinerary yelled, “she bought it! she bought the ticket!!”

Coffee date in person

The 28th of August is special for me. There was something about buying the plane ticket that made our relationship real. The first two months of Skyping with M, I was waiting for it to end. Apart of me wanted it to end. I didn’t know how to do a long-distance relationship. What if we spent months talking on Skype, only to find each other awkward in person? I laugh to myself now how incredibly wrong I was. Markus fought for me more than I realized. He comforted me over Skype, promised me to take this one day at a time. He told me once that at any moment I couldn’t handle long-distance anymore, he would understand. But, the thought that helped me pass the hard time of waiting for a hug from him was this: “what if he is the best person for me and I give him up because long-distance is too hard?” I couldn’t stand the thought. I promised myself that if this relationship was to end, it wouldn’t be because I was weak. It would be because we weren’t right for each other.

I remember waiting thirty minutes in the Hartsfield-Jackson international airport lobby for Markus. Every time a 6’0″ man with light brown hair walked through the sliding glass doors my heart fell to my feet. We had already waited 4.5 months for a hug, what’s another 30 minutes? When I finally saw him walk through the glass doors with his bags in tow, I walked towards him for our first of seven airport reunions. I couldn’t believe how tall he was, how REAL he was! My sweet Markus was standing in front of me instead of standing in front of a computer screen. All of my fears of awkwardness between us faded when he took my hand as we walked to the car, talking and laughing like we had never been apart. Outside of my blue little Spark in the airport parking lot, I made a comment about our future. Markus said (ironically), “I have to do something first before I marry you, Laura.” With that, he kissed me for the first time.

Our first picture together after 4.5 months apart

The past two years have been full of laughs and tears, arguments and long talks, good times and bad. I look back on how scared I was two Augusts ago about giving this relationship a shot. Although we’ve cried many tears with being apart and missed holidays and birthdays together, what I’ve gained from long-distance is irreplaceable. Markus taught me how to be blunt with my feelings, to talk things through. We learned how to be together without being together. He showed me how if someone truly loves you, they won’t care about how much money a plane ticket is or what time it is in their homeland when you call. Ironically, we are learning everyday how to be together on the same continent instead of apart. I wouldn’t trade that for the world.

Today was spent waking up late, drinking coffee together, and having a spur of the moment lunch date at a hibachi restaurant. We played at the pool, tanned, read our books, and enjoyed eachother’s company. Markus made a homemade dinner for us and  the rest of the night will be movie night. Who knows what the next two years will bring? One day we’ll have little Danicans running around (my word for our Danish-American babies). But for now, it’s the two of us. And everyday with the two of us, is better than the last.

Jeg elsker dig, M. Tak for being min mand og bedste ven.

-lmn