25th September, 2003

But I'm getting ahead of myself, I should talk about Terra's birthday first. On July 29th she was 15, which was a bit of a relief because it's a lot easier to tell ppl that my gf is 15 than 14, for obvious reasons. Plus, I'd already told my parents that she was 15 a few weeks b4, so it was a relief to not have to lie about her age to them any more. Now that she's 15 the age difference, which didn't really bother me very much before, doesn't bother me at all, I don't care what anyone else thinks. For her b'day i get her a Linkin Park sweatshirt, and i made her a CD.

Anyway, as August came to a close I finally after counting down the days set off for america, marking the start of the trip in appropriate fashion by throwing up on the way to the airport, lol... Despite the fact that I don't like flying the trans-atlantic flight was absolutely fine, no problems at all, a little turbulence but nothing i couldn't handle. Amazingly enough the plane was actually early, which left me 4 hours to spend in Newark Liberty airport as we're now supposed to call it, which i passed by watching a baseball game in a bar, lol, although obviously not being able to drink, which we'll come to later. Nevertheless i eventually caught the flight to Albany, which wasn't pleasant because it was a small plane and i'm not good with small planes, but luckily it was over very quickly and i was safely back on the ground.

Not wanting to gloss over things too much, but bearing in mind that i have more important things to talk about, I'll be brief about my settling in at college. Suffice it to say that everything has gone pretty much ok up to now, the room isn't exactly great but i've made it comfortable and pleasant enough that i don't mind living here, my class sign up was botched but i managed to get on what seem to be decent and interesting courses, so that worked out ok, my only problem so far has been keeping up with the reading, but i'm getting there. All things considered i think i've settled in pretty well, by and large, hehe.

Which brings me, inevitably, to Terra. It was amazing how much our first meeting meant, how much we had both been looking forward to it for so long, how nervous we both were before and during it. For the whole train ride from Albany to Depew, all 6 1/2 hours of it, I thought about little else. As Buffalo came closer my nervousness increased, as we pulled into the station and i caught a glimpse of her from the window, standing on the platform with her parents, my heart jumped. If anything when i stepped of the train she seemed even more nervous than me, she just stared at me as i shook hands with her dad, then there was an awkward couple of seconds before i worked up the courage to hug her. Her mom seemed to think that there were more hugs going because a few seconds later she hugged me as well. "You're picture doesn't do you justice" one of them said as we walked back to the car, I don't remember who. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? We hardly looked at each other as we sat side by side on the ride back to her house. Her parents asked me questions about how my trip was, other such small talk, she said very little, so far it was nervousness all round.

After we got back to the house we watched a little tv, talked some more, we were starting to get acquainted. After a while of talking with her and her mom as we watched Family Guy we decided to go out to the camper, we were finally going to be alone together. I dumped by bags on the table, we were talking quite freely together by now and a lot of the initial nervousness seemed to have passed. We exchanged gifts, she gave me a Linkin Park t-shirt, a necklace and spongebob boxers for my birthday, I gave her a University of Albany shirt, then sat down to start watching a movie. I chose Rat Race, the nervousness was starting to return again as we sat watching it, should i be holding her hand? Should we be sitting closer, how close? She seemed to be thinking the same thing, because almost simultaneously our hands both appeared next to each other on the sofa between us. After a few more awkward seconds i took her hand, our fingers laced together, it felt great. As we sat watching the movie she rested her head on me and i put my arm around her, the nervousness had gone now, we were enjoying being together, enjoying holding each other and being close after waiting so long. Rat Race became A Walk To Remember, I started to think about kissing her, the nervousness slowly returned again, now greater than before, this would be our first kiss, what if it didn't go well? It took me considerably longer to work up the courage to kiss her, but i finally managed it, the rest as they say, is history.

And that is how i find myself here, on the verge of going to spend my 4th weekend with her, and if the previous 3 are anything to go by it's once again going to be something special. After waiting so long to meet each other, going through so much, i was worried that it wouldn't work out in real life, that we wouldn't be able to meet each other's expectations, and i'm so grateful for how well things have gone. Our's really is an amazing story, to meet and fall in love with someone over the internet, before you even know what they look like or hear their voice, and to get past all that to finally meet and continue the relationship in person, the odds must be astronomical, but here we are. Wow. We're living proof that online relationships can work, and that they can transfer successfully into real life relationships. Many people had written us off at such an early stage, said we'd never make it anywhere, but as the song says, "just look at us holding on, we're still together, still going strong." We've proved everyone wrong and i'm sure we'll keep proving them wrong for much time to come.

Well there you have it. Of course, that doesn't cover everything that's happened since i got here, and i may well talk about some of the other stuff in future entries, since some of it is important, but right now i'm tired and i think i've brought you pretty much up to date. Altogether, an eventful 2 months, but as i sit here writing it i know i have a lot to be thankful for, and i'm happy to be seeing Terra, to be able to hold her, to hug her and kiss her after all this time waiting. They say some things are worth waiting for, this certainly was.