Dear reader, we were married in January - things aren't easy, money is scarily scarce but were are together. Learning to be a couple, learning to be a family.

We still have problems but we have a new home we are building together, building our life together. This week my love started his first UK job so I get to   do all those things that I spent so long yearning to do for him.

My darling came over for Easter. The wedding date is fixed for 16th August - now just have to sort the visa out because just as things were looking bright, I got notice to quit my house and got made redundant - both within 24 hours - man what a day that was.

But the Goddess is smiling (or maybe smirking) so I know everything will come good - I just have to avoid having a nervous breakdown in the meantime.

Well, perhaps things are moving. After a lot of hard work and unexpected gift from my step father I have enough cash for an airline ticket (thank the gods for the good exchange rate is what I say). So with a fair wind and a little luck my darling will be here for a visit over Easter and here for good (assuming that he doesn't change his mind) by the summer!!

I could be a married lady by August!

Well it's been awhile since I wrote - nothing much is happening, extra shifts at work, a bad cold (it's not flu and it's not going to be flu) and my love and I are trying to make plans. A happy thought.

I am sharing a meditation/ritual, that I think most of us could get some benefit from, usually it's performed at Easter - but I think it's good for any time of year.

  Sitting quite still, bring into your mind something you consider a symbol for winter. Vizualize it it being transformed as it passes through Ostara.

  The frigid, isolated snowflake passing through Ostara becomes life- sustaining water to nourish the flowers and all life. The hard earth passing through Ostara becomes the yeilding, bountifuk ground, alive with new growth.

  Visualize the parts of your inner self that may be frozen and immobile. Are these parts ready to awaken? Are you ready to experience the many gifts of Ostara? See what these parts of you will become when passed through the magic of Ostara. Visualize yourself renewed by the generative energies Ostara brings.

  Imagine your deepest secrets and longings transformed by the abundant life force surrounding you at this time. Welcome the insights of Ostara and dare to let yourself be transformed and harvest new blessings.

   Visualize your greatest challenges being transformed into gifts. Even a loss, accident or physical disability has unexpected new gifts to share with you. New skills and awarenesses grow where something is lost. What gifts con the transforming powers of Ostara bring to your challenges?

Well, here I go for a 12 hour shift. Today there is a silence for the tsunami victims - if truth were told I think it's probably a silence for those of us not affected to count our blessings. Such a lot of distruction, so many lives touched. I see the pictures and wonder how clearing up can begin. I also have to question the wisdom of trying to bury the dead - a pyre would make more sense - except now the monsoon rains have started - which at least means clean water can be collected. Hard to light a fire in the rain though.

Ah well, maybe this tragedy will bring out the best in people.

To quote the hymn; The creed and the colour and the race don't matter, were you there?

Time for me to remember who I am, I am a woman with attitude. Strong, sassy and caring.

Yes I am apart from my darling, so I had better damn well do what I can to change that and the first move is to get my attitude back on. Yes I have a mushy affectionate side, and yes I miss my love, but only a sap would let those things define them.

On every scale, the macro and the micro the world is filled with heartache. I have no right to bitch, my son is safe and with me, and although we're apart my love is alive and doing ok.

Every single day thirty thousand people die from extreme poverty. Hundreds of thousands have had their lives shattered by the tsunami.

I have no right to bitch and moan. My family are safe, warm and fed.

I must count my blessings.

I love him so much, I wish we had more hope, even just a holiday would be good. Just a week or two together, to keep us going, to renew the hope, to feel the love we share.

*sigh* Nothing in life is going well for me and there doesn't seem much point in even trying.

What would change if I called a halt, if I said it's not working out, it isn't going to happen and hoping is just ripping both of us apart? On one level, nothing would change, we'd still be apart, just as apart as we've ever been. Just no more phone calls, dreams to be ignored rather than cherished and an over whelming sadness. Is it hoping and trying that's the cause of the sadness? Is it that which adds to my darlings sense of failure? He says nothing ever works out for him, he says there's nothing good in his life, and I wonder why we are even trying, if, in his heart of hearts, he doesn't believe we'll be together, if we aren't a source of joy for each other.

I don't know, all I know is that I love him, and perhaps I need to let him go and find some peace closer to home.

Is it selfish to want my love to think I am the best thing that ever happened to him? Is it ego that makes me hope that I will curb the worst of his self destructive impulses? Is it hubris to think I can take care of him better than he will take care of himself? Maybe in part it's guilt, because a part of me feels that maybe he wouldn't be driven to such extremes if it weren't for our situation. Perhaps, if it wasn't for us, he'd have settled for life with a nice, ordinary, local lady.

I want to be able to prove to him that it's all been worth while, that all the heartache and frustrations caused by having to wait are nothing compared to the joys we'll have together because otherwise why wait?

Christmas is over. I slept for around 14 hours last night, waking in the early hours with the sound of my darlings voice echoing through my dreams.

I don't know if it's ever going to work out, I don't know if he's ever going to come to me, I don't know if we'll ever get to be together.

I know that he is the only man who has ever seen what he sees in me, the only man who I want. I live my little life, some things wont change even if he does come to me, I'll still have my grotty little job, I'll still have my beautiful son to take care of. And if he doesn't come then I've learnt to cope without company, without much affection, without being cared for, so I'll get by. Edd says he doesn't have anything to offer, that he wont match my imaginings of him - hard for me to understand when my imaginings consist of smiles, hugs and someone holding my hand.

So all I can do is wait, hope and accept that if it hasn't happened yet it's because the time isn't right yet.

So much to do, headache crowding in and dispite sleeping late, so tired.

It's hard to paint on a smile and carry on, Christmas was never a favourite time of year for me, and all year I've been using it as a talisman whenever things got really bad, the thought that by Christmas things would be different, we'd be together, only we aren't, and that's no ones fault, it's just how things have panned out but I'm not sure why I should be celebrating.

I did try to get most of the day to myself, have the Little Monster here in the morning then send him off to his dads, but apparently we all have to have xmas dinner together and as I won't go to the ex's him and his lodger will be coming here. The good news is they will be going by tea time, leaving me alone for a day or two. I might get very drunk and sleep a lot. On the other hand I am pleased that my love will be with his folks, I know how much it means to his mum.

So I'll have to smile sweetly and grit my teeth and say nothing, not respond to any of the digs that will be aimed at me.

Such a lot to do...

My love is having a rough time, and there's nothing I can do, he doesn't want reminding of his blessings right now.

I am so lucky though, I have friends who do care about me, even if we've never met, I'm not crazy considering these people as friends, or if I am, they are equally crazy.

I am so tired, got woken up at 5.15am to be told there is no school and it is nearly christmas.

Tonight he is going to a pantomime with grandma and I am at work, so tomorrow I get something of a lie in (Hurrah)!

URGH Christmas! I wish I could cancel - but I have a young man who would not be happy if I tried. I suppose I could have spent the day it's self at the ex's - yeah - like that was ever going to happen. In 13 years the man didn't manage to cook anything that didn't contain baked beans and he thinks I'm going to let him cook me xmas dinner??? Anyway the whole idea is too ghastly to contemplate, the down side to my stubborn streak is that I am now cooking for myself, little monster, the ex and the ex lodger too. And I have managed to lose my xmas decorations, now how the hell did I do that? A small two bedroomed house and I've lost a box of decs and the Christmas tree - how on earth do you lose a tree???

And then there's the underlining of the constant, I am not sharing this holiday with the man I love.It's a fact which hurts so much I'm not exploring it, just accepting that this year, that's how it is, hoping that next year we'll be making xmas dinner together. I miss him so much. Oh well, on Christmas day night, I shall get drunk, alone, and have a damned good cry.

Just to clarify (and try to sound rational).

My love and I haven't met yet.

We've known each other for around four years.

We encountered each other  via the internet.

I am head over heels in love with him, heart, mind, soul and body.

Yes, there is a chance that we won't "gel" when we meet but then that's always a chance.

I can't imagine being in love with anyone else.

It's so hard, I call my darling, sleepy, full of love, desperate for a smile and a hug, willing to settle for him saying my name with a smile. Instead we end up defensive and hurt. Life is mostly shit for both of us, nothing either of plan ever goes right, life throws us curve balls every time. I know that but after a whole day of living that, I want a few minutes sharing one of the few really good things in my life. A few minutes of taking joy from and giving thanks for having found my love. I found someone who , loves me for being me, not for how I look, not for my potential, not for my strengths or my weakness' but because I am what I am. And I've learnt how to love back, to know the reality, to know the faults as well as the positives, to know and feel the distances and still have nothing but love. Edd feels it as a demand, edd can't always do that.  Just the sound of his voice makes me smile.

Ah well better go do some housework...

It's almost 2am for my love and I wish I could wake him.

I woke around two hours ago, full of the feel of him, the warmth and the love of him.

And now my little monster has been collected by his dad and taken on the school trip, I allow myself to feel the size of my wanting.

I want to hear my loves voice, I want him to smile and be pleased to be woken by me, I want him to be loving, affectionate and kind. But it's 2am for him, and it's cold and dark and lonely where he is. Maybe his dreams are warm, full of my love, maybe he dreams of sleeping with me, the way I dream of being asleep with him, I hope so. It's hard to say a hug, it's hard to talk a touch, I wish trying to wasn't so important to me.

So instead of phoning and waking my darling I'll wrap my arms around him in my heart, say I love you out loud to thin air, I'll wish we were together and hope somehow he feels my embrace, hears my declaration and wants our future together as much as I do.

I came awake unwillingly, the weight of a warm hand in the small of my back being the last part of my dream world to leave me.

Half a world away but we sleep togother, just for a few hours and it feels so good, I hate waking.

My darling still has doubts and fears, he doubts that I'll be content with the actual him, he fears that the real him will be too dull, too boring to make me happy. I don't have those doubts and fears. We are both just quiet, ordinary people, who amazingly, magically, fell in love long distance.

Sometimes I have my own doubts and fears, doubts that we'll ever make it, fears that we might never get to live our ordinary life together. Even in the darkests, coldest times in our relationship, I've never questioned our love. Never been afraid we won't be enough for each other.

I'm not pretty, I'm not clever, I'm not always a particularly nice person, but I am his and I belong by his side.

A poem for my love.

Words, Wide Night

Somewhere on the other side of this wide night
and the distance between us, I am thinking of you.
The room is turning slowly away from the moon.

This is pleasurable.  Or shall I cross that out and say
it is sad?  In one of the tenses I singing
an impossible song of desire that you cannot hear

Carol Ann Duffy

I need to stop hoping, need to try to stop dreaming. There's nothing I can do to make my dreams come true, I can't apply for jobs for my love, I can't ask for visas on his behalf - hell I'm struggling to pay my rent.

It'd be easier if my dreams weren't so real, so vivid, so tactile. How the hell do you dream that you are asleep curled with the man you love?

Then I wake up and he isn't next to me, he isn't just downstairs making tea, he's half a world away.

I just had to hang up on my darling because I couldn't cry down the phone again to him.

I am getting strung out, Christmas, the ex and dead dreams, all year I've been telling myself this xmas will be different because my love and I will be together, only we won't. And the only way this xmas will be different is there will be more crap thrown my way than usual. I sort of hope folk will let me be alone, after the little monster has opened his pressies and gone off to his dads for lunch.

I have to face some things, sometimes, no matter how much a thing is wanted, that isn't enough to make it happen, and maybe, no matter how much we both want it, no matter how much we both love each other, maybe my love and I won't be able to be together.

I'm just strung out I guess, it's not been a good week. It's been the sort of week when a lady needs to come home to a warm smile and someone who'll make a mug of tea and say that things will be ok.

Instead I walk into a house thats just full of things that need me to sort them out. No friendly face.No comforting cuddles.

I'm tired. Tired of running to stand still, tired of having to justify myself, tired of only having dreams to hold on to and so very very tired of crying down the phone to the man I love. If it weren't for my little monster I'd have run away to Mexico to be closer to my love, by now.

Yesterday was a bitch of a day. It started with having to be at work for 7.30am, it continued with my boss saying I'd have to wait until next payday for the £20 he forgot to pay me from this weeks wages and frm then escalated into me having to run for a bus - which is against all my principle. All that was before 10am and the day didn't improve and it didn't end until 1am. There were just three highlights, one answerphone message from my love when I arrived home from the hospital, and two actual calls with him.

But I did sleep in late today - the ex phoned at 9am and asked if he could come round for coffee and to drop some bits off for the little monster - I said no, you can drop them off when you pick him up tomorrow, and I went back to sleep.

Step by step I'm taking back control from the control freak. I'm too fond of a quiet life for my own good.

Blugh - hospital today and I'm late for work...

Not heard from my love for a couple of days - I think he is working away again.

I've been feeling confused, exasperated and helpless. As most people do I took it out on the person closest to me, and he, feeling equally lost and bewildered has been pulling away, laying low, licking his wounds.

Yet it's not him I'm annoyed with.

Last night I dreampt he was talking to me, telling me how unhappy he was that as well as circumstances conspiring to keep us apart I seemed mad with him, I hope he heard me explain that it isn't him.

My heart is full of him, our love is a shining beacon, leading us to a place where we can both be contented, happy, sheltered from the storms of the world. I can't wait until the time when we can be wrapped in each others arms.

What we have isn't about romance or sex, it is about two people together being greater than the sum of the parts. It's about  being where we both belong - together, contented companions.

I'm a bit of an old hippy and although events have unfortunately proved this gesture to be futile this story warmed my heart. As my darling says - all the world needs is more love and fewer weapons.

By Kylie Morris BBC News, Bangkok

Today I woke up bitter. My love wonders why I'm full of doubts and fears, yet at the same time, in some ways he's pulling away from me.

It used to be that we were on the same message board and were in almost constant contact, then, when that was over, we would email each other several times a day and im whenever we could, phone calls were rare but it hardly mattered, we played online games together, we chatted.

Right now, my darling doesn't even always take my calls. Right now my darling is filling me full of fear by drinking too much again, right now my darling doesn't feel moved to email or im with me, right now my darling doesn't want to play games.

Last night I was reading some of our old im logs; I have believed that he was coming last summer, I believed that he'd be coming in November, I believed he'd be here before Christmas, now I'm facing another Christmas without him and I'm hoping he'll be here after Christmas sometime.

If I could I'd have flown to him an age ago, yet so far life has always got in the way of him coming to me. Now all the big things that came between us have been over come, it seems like the slightest thing is an obsticle.

Yet how can I complain, what I am asking of him is huge. Maybe I am being unreasonable even starting to get impatient. Maybe I am just getting twisted up over another Christmas without my love by my side.

Maybe my heart is full of fears for my love.

One thing is constant, I love him, I want him with me. I have no option but to wait because there is no one else for me.

Yesterday was a rough day for me, although I did see The Incredibles movie, which is very clever and very funny.

Today I've been licking my wounds, missing my sweetheart, and worrying about him too.

Not too much I feel like sharing today, maybe tomorrow I'll be feeling more communicative.

I'm being haunted, haunted by a BBC radio program about the genocide memorials in Rwanda. As a world service listener I was aware of the genocide when it was happening, I couldn't (and still can't) understand why the world seemed to be ignoring this dreadful, horrific event when the BBC were reporting on it every night. Now I am moved to tears at the thought of the memorials. Memorials which do not bury the dead but preserve them to be wept over, to be a source of shame to all the organisations and governments who did nothing. One things sticks in my mind, a coffin human shaped but way too big to be human, when the reported asked what it was she was told that a local woman had been raped to death by a tree, it hadn't been possible to remove the tree without ripping her fragile body apart, so her family had asked that she be put into the coffin, tree in situ.

Mans inhumanity to man never ceases to amaze me.

It isn't stopping, Rwanda wasn't an isolated case, all over the world people are maiming and killing because of race, or religion, or politics.

I know not many folk are reading this (probably because I am not exactly advertising the url) but for anyone who has stumbled across this blog, please visit; http://www.rwandafund.org/sections/projects/slide.htm and http://www.aegistrust.org/index.php and make a difference.

Whoohoo! I woke up with an ear to ear grin.

My darling is coming.

He really is.

Coming so we can be together.

The three of us a family, a loving unit.

I fell asleep on the phone to my darling last night. I woke up confused, thinking he was next to me, I was so warm it felt like we were cuddled up together.

Ed worries about my ex, worries that he is usurping a man who loves me. Truth is my ex emotionally abused me for years, made me feel like I'd be better off dead, made me feel useless. My ex only started trying to be considerate and pleasant after I'd left. He never thought I'd have the strength to leave. It's so hard to have my ex in my house, to be pleasant, to be polite when I remember how he treated me. But he is the father of my son, and I have never doubted how much he loves Guy and Guy loves his daddy. So I smile and try to be friendly and polite for the sake of my child and I wait, wait for my darling to be with us. Wait for the love of a man who is basically gentle, kind and loving.

The little snot monster is at his grandmas as I was at work last night and his dad is working away, so this morning I got to sleep in. I woke at 8am then fell back to sleep, a sleep full of dreams. Dreams of me and my ed. Lots of smiles, lots of giggles, all snuggles and caresses. Nice dreams, the sort of dreams that make waking a melancholy affair. I didn't get to speak to my love last night - home late from work, there was an answermachine message waiting but when I tried to return the call, my darling wasn't able to take my call...I miss him so much. He says it's just a fantasy I have, but it isn't. He has spent so much time, being there for me, during some of the worst times in my life, times when I was so alone and lonely. Ed was there, calling me, giving me a shoulder to cry on, reminding me I'm strong, reminding me what is important. Being with someone who you love and respect and care about is important especially if they love and respect and care about you.

I have been given (umm yeah lovely pressie) extra shifts at work - I now hate my job, but the money will be useful and soon it will be time to move on. I'm not happy though - I told them months ago that I couldn't work New Years Eve (it's a long shift start at 1pm and work through until around 5am New Years Day), I'd hoped that ed would be here and we'd be seeing in the new year together, but now he won't be here and my boss knows that so can't see why I don't want to work...

Ah well time to go to the shop, pick up a few bits, feed the cats, and either do a little housework or kill some time on the computer.

It's a beautiful, clear, bright, cold winters morning, and I am so tired. The little snot monster has been trying to wake me up since 6.30 am and it's taken 2 hours for me to come round. I even went to bed relatively early for me, but my sleep isn't very restful. I'm worrying about Ed. Which is silly, he is a grown man and knows what he's doing and there's nothing I can do to modify his behaviour anyway. I hate when he drinks though, he makes himself ill.

Funny that my weakness would actually help my loves health (cannabis improves liver function), although these days, apart from the occassional pipe I don't indulge.

I hate having to cope by myself, I hate not having anyone to hug me and tell me it's going to be ok. I hate being the strong one. And the crap thing is that looking for that reassurance and comfort doesn't work for me. Eds more likely to say "what do you expect, falling in love with a broken older man, half a world away?" No chance of being held close and comforted for me. Ah well, the down side of being a strong woman. Being a surviver seems to mean I don't get the hugs and cuddles, good job I'm used to it.

Well here's a shift in mood,  I was sat, as content as it's possible for me to be right now. My sweet little snot moster is tucked up in his bed, dropped into an instant sleep by lack of proper rest last night and the wonders of modern medicine combined with a hot bath. His father left my house as soon as we were sure the snot monster was asleep, having read him a story (well more accurately a few pages of descriptions of animals in the local safari park) and I had hot, sweet coffee.

Then I get a new email. Probably junk I think, but emails these days are so uncommon, I read junkmail. So I go to my inbox and there is an email from my darling Ruthie. She miscarried last Sunday. She was 5 weeks pregnant with her new husbands baby. A baby that they both wanted so much. A baby I was so envious of. And my feelings are a swirl of muddied colours, sorrow for their loss, sadness that that is one baby that will never be cuddled by it's aunty Vashti, joy in their possiblities, and a strange acceptance, acceptance of the departing of spirit of that unknown baby, acceptance of my own situations.

Mostly an overwhelming feeling of helplessness, I can't do anything to change my situations, and I can't do anything to comfort my dearest friend. I should be able to at least make tea and cake for her, give her a hug, just hold her, but it will be next week before I have the chance to go (3/4 of an hour on the bus and a 20 minute walk from the bus stop each way) and I'm not even sure if I'd be welcome...

It's 3am for my love, and right now I am overwhelmed by the desire to be curled up close against his sleeping body. As it's 10am for me I shouldn't be sleepy but I am, my sleep pattern is closer to Eds timezone and sleep pattern than it is to mine - a little awkward as I'm 7 hours ahead of him..

It scares me, just how much I want that man in my life, really in my life, here, with me. Wanting something isn't a good way of getting it.

Last week I thought he'd given up on us, I thought he'd cut me adrift, that I was a free agent. It felt awful. There was no one else I wanted. I briefly thought of reverting to my youthful ways and trying to find comfort in casual sex, but as I started to get dressed to go out, I had a sudden realisation of what it would be like to have some stranger, who didn't care about me, who I didn't care about, who wasn't ed, touch me. I was physically sick. I couldn't stand the thought. I only want the man I love. Even if he does think I am living in some sort of fantasy world because I want him.

So last night Ed asked why I had started this blog. I guess the answer is because there's things I need to say, feelings I need to give a voice to, things which he doesn't feel comfortable listening to directly.

Funny that between us the things that worry him most don't worry me at all. He worries about the age difference, that at 9 years my senior he is too old to make me happy. My father was over 20 years older than my mother, right up to the day he died (unfortunately relatively young) my father made my mother happy. Our home was full of affection and humour. Of course my parents argued but they also laughed together, taught each other things and loved each other and me and my sister.

I want that sort of home, that sort of adult example for my son, I want him to grow up knowing that men can respect women when they live together.

And, more selfishly I want that sort of physically affectionate relationship. I want someone who hugs me every day, without even thinking about it, I want a man who will take my hand as we sit watching tv or walk down the street. It's not about sex, penatrative sex isn't so much fun for me since my son was born (insert horrible medical intervention here), but it is about being physically loving and affectionate, and that's something that's been missing from my life for such a long time.

And the other big thing that worries my darling is that so far we've never met. It used to worry me too. Now I realise that it's only in western, modern culture that it's even unusual. Would he be any easier in his mind if we had been brought together by a matchmaker? Now my only worry is that we won't get the chance to meet face to face. That I won't get the chance to live life with the man who is my counter balance, the air that feeds my flame. That I won't get chance to love him, take care of him, warm him with my fire.

Edward knows me better than he realises, and I know him too.

We both have a history, a past that left it's scars, mental, physical and emotional. Our pasts have taken us down paths which most folk do not travel, which is too often judged negatively by those who trod a more conventional path in life. Edd has never judged me on my history, he just accepted it. Our histories are what has made us what we are, for better or worse.

I love my darling so much, more than he wants me to express while we're so far apart. More than I know how to express, to be honest.

The first thought as I wake is of him, the last thought before I sleep is his, my dreams are full of us together and my days are full of his absence. My alpha and omega. My beginning and my end. The man I love. Edward D. Rennacker.

I don't get to talk to anyone much. I don't have any way of getting those little emotional questions answered. The questions about your relationship which is answered with a smile, or a hug before your mind has chance to realise it has asked the question. The man who I love is half a world away. Half the year he has been 8 hours behind my timezone. Whenever we got to talk one of us had either just woken or was falling asleep. Not a great benefit to the art of conversation.

My love has been working so hard this summer, in such an extreme climate and I have worried so much about him. Wanting so much to be able to give the comforts that loving couples give to each other. The shoulder rub, the food prepared, the bath run, the smile, the hugs, but I've not being able to do anything to make things easier for him.

I've tried so hard not to fully admit how much I want him with me, tried so hard to play down how big a thing it is for both of us. I have to ask my darling to leave everything, family, friends, possesions and come half way round the world to live with a strange and crazy lady and her monster 7 year old son. And, to be honest all I have to offer is myself, which, to me, right now seems like a pretty poor deal.

Which is why, recently I've been insecure. Terrified that he might have woken up one day and realised what a rotten deal he'd got and decided to stay where he is.

So I've been searching for reassurance, but what can my darling do? So much left to sort out before he can come, even if he wants to, no point in making another set of plans, just in case these get smashed too.

And so we get so desperate.

Yet all he has to do is say my name and my heart is overflowing with love, I can close my eyes when he says my name and I can feel his heart beat, feel the warmth of him, feel his arms about me, feel his breath on my neck and I never want that moment to end. I wish I could do something like that for my Edward. Another reason I want him here, so I can make him feel as loved as he makes me feel.

So I'm going to try not to be so needy. I'm going to write things on here, and if Edd wants to read (and I hope he will) then well and good, but here it's not to him, here I don't expect anyone to reply. Edd will be give this url, a few might stumble across this, but mostly this is just me, dropping pebbles down a well.