Surreality

This past weekend, I had a lot of very surreal moments.

1) I went to St Louis, MO for my younger brother's wedding. It was so great meeting Brandy and her family. She is 100% awesome, and I think they're perfect for each other. It still hasn't hit me that my 'little' brother is married, though...

2) When I landed in Minneapolis for my connecting flight, I got to watch the last half of a baseball game. Oh sweet relief. Too bad the stupid Yankees won. But hey, they're out of it now, suckers.

3) I was surrounded by American accents, and had to fight the urge to look around and locate the my countrymen/women.

4) I spent time with my nephew, who is, without doubt, the cutest little boy in existence. Sorry to all the other mothers out there, but I have proof. Contact me privately if you need it. The last time I saw him, he was crawling, and this time he couldn't be stopped while running around in his Chuck Taylors.

5) I ate the best candy in the world: Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

And last, but certainly not least...

6) I was able to speak to the man, Mr Gibbons, in real life. We already knew so much about each other, yet I still had those jitters about meeting him for the first time. I was actually shaking in the airport; partly because they decided that a comfortable temperature for everyone would be around freezing, and partly because I was nervous. But then he finally came out of the terminal, luckily not wearing an ASU shirt, as I feared when I saw another similar-looking passenger.

Here are my conclusions about Andy after our weekend together:

• He is tall. Really tall. I knew he would be, of course, but it didn't really hit me until I was standing next to him.
  
• He is a good driver.
• After the initial shock of seeing each other through our own eyes instead of a computer screen, it felt remarkably normal and familiar to be around him, which is exactly what I had hoped would happen.
• He is extremely sweet and thoughtful.
  

And perhaps the most important realisation came after something Andy said about marriage after we watched my brother tie the knot. We had spoken about marriage before as an eventuality, as something we knew would happen someday. But I think both of us unknowingly removed the significance of it: taking two people that were once separate and making them one.

While Andy and I have definitely started the process, we still have some work to do before we're ready for this step. It will be amazing, but this is something that can only happen through frequent interaction, spending time with each other, seeing each other in bad moods, having a fight, making up. I'm sure we will go through all of them.

Note: I had to publish this post in a bit of a hurry, and didn't realise until later that I've actually missed out what I really wanted to say...

I love Andy. That's right, I dropped the l-bomb. He is so amazing, and I feel so incredibly happy and comfortable when I'm with him. This time in St Louis was so necessary, because I don't know how I would have made it had we not been able to see each other at this point. I'm so happy that now when I zone out in the tube, it's because I'm remembering something rather than spending my time imagining what it will be like when we finally meet.

I'm so excited to be able to start a relationship that's not separated by 5,000 miles and eight hours of time difference. I know that the more time I spend with him, the more I will love him.

How could this be so perfect? That's the most surreal part of this past weekend: that he is real, and we are real.