Eight years

Want to know what I was doing eight years ago today? Specifically at this very moment I was boarding an airplane in Atlanta. Just me and five very large suitcases.

Why so much luggage? Because I was moving to Germany.

After all these years people still ask me why I did it and have no better answer than the sappy reply of "Love made me do it.". It's corny but it's correct. I was at a point in my life where I had nothing to lose and if my instincts and gut feelings were correct, I had everything to gain. People also ask me if I was scared or they ask how did I know I was going the right thing. I didn't really know I was doing the right thing. And I didn't see much point in being scared. If I wanted to be scared I may as well not do it and saved the money spent on airline tickets.

All I really knew was this. I loved B. B was in Germany. And I believed in us. So if I believed in us and B was in Germany, I had to be in Germany too. There wasn't room to think about whether I could take care of him or whether we could make it together. Those were things that had to be so I'd do whatever I had to do to make it happen. Why doubt that I could take care of a quadriplegic? Time would be better spent just doing it instead of fretting about my abilitites. Why doubt I could love a quadriplegic? I already loved him - his spinal cord injury was just something that came along with the package.

And yet with all the optimism and determination there were still sadness. Driving past my hometown's city limits made my throat tighten. Clutching my tearful mother and saying goodbye to her was harder than I expected. Flying from Memphis to Atlanta wasn't bad but when the plane from Atlanta to Frankfurt left the ground I was flooded with a wave of homesickness - a feeling that would repeat itself over and over for weeks yet to come. Flying over Washington, D.C. was hard as I'd lived in the area for many years and had so many friends there I was leaving behind. Finally when I flew out of US airspace I felt like I was closing a door.

The flight to Germany is long. I tried to distract myself as well as I could but all I could think of was getting out of that plane and getting started on my new life. I broke down the flight time into segments - drinks and snacks, dinner, movie, snack, movie, breakfast - but during those little inbetween lulls in the shuffling action from the flight attendants I began to wonder what my life was going to be like. Naturally I'd thought of this before but this time when I was really in the midst of making that all important start it took on a sense of seriousness and reality that it hadn't before condured up. And somewhere between the last movie and breakfast I'd made up my mind with actual conviction that I was in this for the long haul. This was my new start. This was the path I'd chosen. I could either go into this with the idea that I could quit if things got hard or I could go into this with the idea that I was going to do my best, I was going to expect the best and that I was going to keep the commitment I'd made when I decided to move. There was no sense in wondering what I'd do if things didn't pan out because not panning out wasn't an option. If I wasn't going to go into this will the full conviction that I'd made the right decision then I shouldn't have gotten on the plane. I was on the plane. The new life had started. And I believed in it.

There was one more plane to board on that trip - one from Frankfurt to Hannover. It's a short flight - roughly forty-five minutes. All you have time to do is sit down, buckle up, have some juice thrown as you, gulp it down, have the cup and napkin snatched away and prepare to land but even that was too much for me. I was tired. I was anxious. My hair felt lank and dirty and my skin felt as if it had some sort of film covering it. I was jet lagged, itchy eyed and would have sold my brothers for a cigarette.

I endured the landing, the luggage gathering and passing through customs and all I had to do was go through one more set of doors.

They opened. And he was there. And he smiled at me.

And I was home.