Wandering Lovers

Just shy of three years ago, I fell in love. It was complicated, confusing and completely unexpected. I had always heard the cliched saying that I would find the right person when I was least expecting it and this love was no exception; bulldozing right into me, knocking me for six and shaking up any ideas I’d had about love and romance prior to that point.

Except this love wasn’t a simple boy meets girl ‘meet cute’ story. I fell in love with my boss. My boss who was engaged to be married to another woman. A woman whose life I would have to destroy in order to be happy.

Rich now says he knew from the moment he met me that there was something special about me, unfortunately I cannot say the same. I didn’t realise I loved him right up until the moment I first told him, by which time I couldn’t stop the words coming out. We had worked together for almost two years before our first kiss on a drunken work night out. Our ‘affair’ and relationship moved very quickly from then onwards; within 3 months Rich had called off his engagement, moved to Swindon and I moved myself into his flat. Everything seemed different, I had never been so utterly content with another person before. We tried to keep our relationship quiet; hiding it from our colleagues and our families, but it was only a matter of time before it all came tumbling out. Fortunately everyone was supportive and happy for us and so far we’re withstanding the test of time.

Right from the early days we knew we wanted to explore the world together. We bought a map and a handful of the best travel books and started to research where we might want to go. We set a date to pack up and leave – 20th July 2016 – and put a countdown timer on our phones.

And then we stopped.

The maps and books ended up under the bed left to gather dust. The countdowns on the phones got deleted. We stopped talking about all the adventures we were going to have. We got caught up in real life. In adulting. In paying our bills and working too many hours. In forgetting all the things we said would be different about our love. We moved to Stevenage, rented a gorgeous 3 bedroom house and played the game. We did everything that two people in their late twenties should be doing.

And it made us miserable.

We always knew we loved each other. We just never saw each other. We worked 12-16 hour days, often on opposite shift patterns, like ships passing in the night. We lost our sense of adventure and our dreams of world travel seemed to be a distant memory of another life together.

Everything changed for us in February 2016. We boarded a plane to Perth to visit some of Richard’s family and in an instant we remembered everything that we’d wanted to do all along. We got back to the UK and started planning how quickly we could get back to Australia. After some initial visa disappointments we realised we were both eligible for Working Holiday Visas and in April 2016 our 1 year visas were granted. We spent the next 6 months planning our trip and on 1st November 2016 we boarded a plane to New York City.

Our life as Wandering Lovers had officially begun.

#Adventure #Australia #Love #Travel