This afternoon I took Jules to the airport so he could return home. He was very accommodating when I asked him to ride the bus rather than have me drive him because I knew I would be too emotional to concentrate on driving especially with the way I’ve been feeling the last few days. I recently came down with a nasty bug of some sort (lightheaded, icky throat, achy muscles, exhaustion) so I really didn’t want to stress myself more than I had to. I cried a lot this time, more than I remember doing any other time. I suppose the difference this visit had was the fact that we had one full month of uninterrupted time together, we were able to live together in our home without others intruding upon us. The only times we were not at each other’s side were showers and trips to the bathroom. This is something neither of us have ever experienced for such an extended period of time before, so it was significant.

It’s one thing to be happy and excited with the anticipation of living with the one person you love most, but it’s quite another to actually experience it. There are so many people in my life who I love dearly and enjoy spending time with, but it’s often a great relief when I get some time away from them. Even the most incredible people can become too much if you are near them too often. This visit proved one very important point to me, which is that even with spending every waking (and sleeping) moment next to Julian, I never tired of him or felt bored at all. What I did feel occasionally was overwhelmed because I had no alone time (after being accustomed to spending most of my time alone.) I spent almost no time online or checking e-mail (sorry if I haven’t responded to you if you wrote!) or doing anything for myself because it felt like any time spent away from him would be wasted. Having alone time is a healthy (and necessary) thing but we both decided to sacrifice that on this occasion because our time together was so limited. Once he returns and is here for good we will be able to have our own personal time without that worry, and I think that will make things even better for us. I did feel a bit sad over the fact that I didn’t ever have the opportunity to be apart from him for long enough to miss him. The anticipation of seeing him again after being away (even for a few hours, like to work) was absent, and I found I really missed that.

This is the last time he’ll have to leave me here to go back to Australia. The next time he arrives will be for good, as we will be getting married. While he was here we finished as much of the visa paperwork as we could, so when he gets home he’ll only have a few additional forms to complete before his interview. We estimate everything should be in order by April, so we should be getting married in the April-June range, depending on how long it takes him to get all his loose ends tied up there. It’s quite strange to think about it from his perspective, that many of the people he will be returning home to tomorrow may not see him for years once he’s living in America. His family is planning on coming to Wisconsin for the wedding and they predict that will be the last time they will all be together for a long while. His older brother and his family plan on coming over from England for the celebration, which is incredible to me! They all love travel though, so it’s a great opportunity for everyone. This will be the first time our families meet each other, and likely to be the only meeting for a long time, so it will be pretty important.

We are planning on having a very small, short, and simple service for the wedding itself and then throwing an awesome party afterwards. We’re letting my aunts plan it all out since they’re retired and love that sort of thing. Once Julian arrives in America we’ll only have 90 days in which to have the wedding so we will definitely need the help they can offer us. It would be incredibly difficult to plan a Wisconsin wedding from Washington while alone and working while my fiance is in another country. We’re very grateful for their help.

After a bit of frustration I found a wedding dress I like. I am very uninterested in having a traditional ceremony so I am looking at it from a practical perspective. I don’t want a ceremony that bores me (because it would certainly bore the guests!) and likewise I don’t want a dress I’d pay hundreds of dollars for which I’d never wear again. I tried on Mom’s dress but I’m far bustier than she is so it didn’t fit. Once that idea was set aside, Julian and I started checking the formal dress sections of Macy’s and Nordstrom but found them pretty lacking. One day we were walking around downtown and Jules saw some really cute clothes in the window of Urban Outfitters so we went in, and I spotted the dress almost immediately. It’s a simple, light, flowing sundress with elastic, frilly straps. Very, very cute and comfortable, and something I wouldn’t mind wearing again. I found a small half-length sweater to wear over the top of it to make it a bit more modest. Together, the dress and sweater cost about $100. Yes. I also ended up getting a bunch of shirts from UO which were on clearance plus a hat. This is a store which Jules and I both find incredibly suitable to our respective tastes in clothing, which is something I never thought possible. We will most assuredly be shopping there on a regular basis.

Julian and I did a huge amount of shopping for the apartment while he was here. I held out for over a year on purchasing many domestic items just so we could choose things together, and it really paid off. We got a TV stand for our new HDTV, a coffeetable with storage room inside (for video game controllers), a corner computer desk, a living room chair, a bed (and bedding), shower curtain, bathroom rugs, towels, soap dispenser, electric tea kettle, and coffee maker. Some of his relatives gave him some money for our engagement so we put that towards those items. The apartment feels a LOT more like a home now, and it has a bit of both our tastes in its decor, which is very important to me. It would have been easy enough for me to get all those things without his help, but I really wanted him to have input so that when he comes to live here so he will feel more like he’s in our home and less like he’s simply a guest in mine. Even though he’s now spent some time in America, it will still be new and strange to him and anything I can do to make him more comfortable will be really beneficial to him.

We also got a kitty, as I mentioned in a previous post. His name is Roscoe, and he’s a medium-haired black and white cat (neutered male.) He’s less than a year old (somewhere around 9 to 11 months) and he is crazed. He has an insane amount of energy and always wants to play. He’s learned to fetch a ball thrown down the stairs and return it to the person who tossed it and will even bring the ball to you when he wants to play. He play-bites a lot, which is annoying and painful at times, but at least he doesn’t bite to hurt. I just wish he wouldn’t do it at all. Hopefully he’ll outgrow that. He’s pretty clean, uses the litterbox just fine, and doesn’t shed too much considering the length of his hair. He doesn’t like having his fur brushed, so he’ll have to get used to that since it’s going to have to be done regularly. We took him in to the vet and he’s pretty healthy, but they gave him some flea/parasite medication anyhow. His meow is very peculiar in that it’s very high-pitched and has a sort of trill to it. It always sounds like he’s winding up before he speaks, sort of like “Prrrrrrrr-rowh.” He meows a lot in the mornings when he isn’t gnawing on my ankles trying to get me out of bed.

It was really nice this time to be able to introduce Julian to my friends and family. As soon as he arrived here we took off to Wisconsin where we stayed for 5 days. I got to show him off to my parents and brother as well as many of my buddies from school. We were busy all of those days, after which we came right back to Seattle. Poor Julian was way too overwhelmed by meeting so many new people that we had to take a few days to recover and just be alone with each other. He coped with it all very well though, and in the end we spent a considerable amount of time with my friends here. Everyone really took to him, which made me very happy. I knew they would but it was nice to experience that first-hand. It feels nice to hear people say to me that I found a fantastic person, that they approve of my choice. :D I’m sure he would have liked to have spent more time with Will but for the first part of the time Julian was here, Will was in Japan with Hiroko, whom he brought back with him! Once Julian returns I’m sure we’ll be able to get together more often.

This was the first Valentine’s Day we were able to spend together, and it was really nice. We agreed that it would be lovely to go out to a nice restaurant for dinner, but that doing that on VD would be a stupid idea. So rather than going on Wednesday night, we went on the Thursday before. Both of us dressed up nicely and had a fantastic dinner at Cheesecake Factory, then came home and played an old, stupid Capcom game called “Quiz and Dragons.” On VD proper, we went to a concert at the Triple Door in the afternoon (Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter) then met up with friends at a pub in Fremont for dinner. Later in the evening the downstairs neighbors came up to say goodbye and then we held each other while I cried over the fact he was leaving today. It was sweet and comforting despite the sadness I felt.

At the moment I am rather sad since this is the first time in a month that I’ve been alone for more than 45 minutes at a time. It feels weird and uncomfortable. Roscoe seems a bit confused at the absence of the other man of the house and to be honest I’m a bit nervous about what it’s going to be like with just the two of us here. I’ve never lived with a cat before so this will be a new experience for me. He’s going to be even more confused when I go back to work soon and he’s alone for 10 hours a day. I’m not sure how he’ll cope with that given how social he is so I will likely go get him a feline buddy to keep him entertained. I’m not sure whether to get one that’s older or younger than him though. I guess we’ll see.

I think I’m a few hours away from missing Julian desperately. The only thing that will make this easier is the knowledge that he will soon return and I’ll never have to be without him again.