Love can make us do strange and extraordinary things. Whether it’s staying up with weighty eyelids to respond to a message or taking 4 flights in one day to be with someone who needs you – it pushes us past boundaries we thought were impossible to cross.
There’s been a theme in my writing throughout blog posts and countless filled journals: I keep managing to surprise myself. I never thought I’d be brave enough to be where I am (whether it’s bravery or ignorance of difficulty is still up in the air). If you would have told 16 year old me that one night I’d take a ferry across a sea and drive alone to the other side of a small country to be with someone I loved, well – I don’t know what I would have thought.
The longer I feel as though I’ve been in love, the more it becomes apparent that it isn’t the swooping feelings of butterflies in stomaches that are important. It’s the desire to go through great lengths to support someone. Whether that’s driving in the wee hours of the morning through snaking roads to an airport to pick up my parents or flying from Orlando to Atlanta to Amsterdam to Birmingham to Dublin all in one day for a significant other – it’s worth it.
As I approach the end of my penultimate year at university, I’m faced with the fact that I do not have a right to remain here in the United Kingdom. To say that I love this country and the people it’s introduced me to would be an understatement. There have been so many archaeology days, coffee dates, museum wanderings, cottage gardens, teas, sunsets, and love.
It’s this strange and extraordinary love again that urges me to do whatever I can to see those little life changing words, ‘Congratulations! Your visa application has been approved. ‘.
seven hills 