how i met your father: our love story, part xii

here's the next chapter of our love story. i'll keep writing, but december is an insanely busy month for us. i doubt i will make much progress until we leave town and i have some emotional space to write.

i'm also thinking through some other posts, but am not sure if i'll get to those. unfortunately, december will probably be a fairly quiet month here at senor elefante because its a very "loud" month in our home. i seriously don't have a night without something planned until dec. 19. *sigh*

stick with me! i promise to come back after the new year.

************

i don’t remember how many days passed before i knew michael had received my letter – from 8000 miles away, i’d sent it priority air mail, hoping it wasn’t lost on its way. but, i do remember that my teammates and i were preparing to leave for a 10 day trip to the province when the email came.

i wish i remember exactly what it said, but the words are long lost in the emotion of the moment. i’m sure it was simple: i still like you and would like to begin to pursue you again. for the first time in our relationship, michael stood the chance of being rejected. he didn’t know my heart still longed to be with him. so, writing to ask me to give him another chance was a bold move.

he’d given our relationship a lot of thought, had been through a very difficult time himself and was ready to begin our relationship again. he later told me, he knew at that moment that if i agreed to “date” him, he wanted to marry me.

there wasn’t an internal struggle for me whether to pick up our relationship. i knew i loved him and wanted to be with him. my heart was still hurt, but i figured that could be worked out. and so, separated by the vastness of the pacific ocean, we began to date again.

it wasn’t until i returned from my trip that we really nailed down what our relationship would look like. i anticipated being in manila for another year. how often would we email? (often) how often would we talk on the phone? (not for awhile and less frequently than we emailed) would michael come to manila to see me? (sorry, i’m a broke college senior, he said) but, i was once again his girlfriend.

and my heart was on cloud nine.