Ripping the bandaid off

Ready? Yes? No? OK.

As I sit here in this posh Berlin apartment rental (thanks again, Dustin!), I can't help but to feel silly about my mixed bag of emotions. But I remember something I learned from my days at the Crisis Clinic - we all define our own crisis. If a woman calls crying because her Thanksgiving turkey was burned in the oven and she can't see a way out of her misery, you just have to take everything in context and support them as best as you can.

So it's not that I'm having a crisis, persay, but very early this morning I put Darryl in a cab and we said our goodbyes, knowing it would be probably about 4 months before he can come visit me. This might not seem like a long period of time to those who have endured/endure a long distance relationship, but we have been together almost non stop for 5 and a half years. But after this trip and this last month of working toward this, we have become closer than I ever imagined possible.

We had a spectacular day together yesterday, but as the giant click ticked down, we both became more and more anxious and upset. So as he said, "should we just rip the bandaid off now"? ... and fairly soon after, we did. And though I still don't feel great, it felt better to at least get past that moment that we've so dreaded over the past few months.

He is still thankfully adamant that that a) I need to do this and b) this is not a mistake (as I may or may not have said last night. :)

Onto happier posts hopefully moving forward - I just have one more large hurdle before going into the land of unknown, and that's hopping on a plane by myself to Phuket on Monday. Dustin and I are still here in fabulous Berlin for another 2 nights, so I still have a partner and crime and crutch to use for the last stages of this transition!

By the way - what an AWESOME vacation and way to kick off this trip. I will be uploading photo sets to Flickr and make a few separate posts about the great time we have had in Munich, Prague and Berlin shortly.

Tschüss!!

-Erin