Homework! Woo!

So my very bestest friend in the world, Katie, asked me to help her with her homework tonight. It just so happened to segue perfectly with my own "homework" (almost like she planned it... hmm... tricksy...) in that she just needed me to write a quick story to go with a photograph she'd taken. The catch? The story needed to have a specific theme, chosen from amongst Over, Before, After, Beyond, or Into (yes, it's a prepositional thing. More on this once she has her site up and running.) I chose Beyond (ie, relocation). Here is the (mostly-true) story I whipped up...
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I grew up moving from place to place- it’s the military way of life. As such, it has never been a big deal, the idea of picking up my life (or abandoning it altogether) and reinventing myself in a new place, amongst new people. It is freedom in the purest sense- the chance to leave everything and make a new start, where no one knows your story. No one knows you. It’s exciting, exhilarating- and I never let anything hold me anywhere. Or anyone hold me, for that matter. More than one bitter ex accused me of relocating just to prove that I could- and maybe they were right. One in particular claimed that I never ran to anything: that I only ever ran away.

He probably was the most right of all.

That changed, however, in the summer of 2007. I was the happiest with my life I had ever been; I was 26 and single, but content with it. I had just been promoted, and genuinely loved my new job. My best friend had recently moved to my city-of-the-moment, and we were sharing an apartment- not to mention a solid circle of friends, a steady influx of social engagements, and a renewed devotion to my art and the culture surrounding it. Life was good, and I really was happy: not looking for anything else.

Which, of course, is when something else found me.

The details of our courtship don’t matter so much- suffice to say he and I fell in love against our better judgment, and our better judgment was screaming pretty loudly about the 3000 miles that separated us. Both of us were fiercely independent, and never would have thought to ask the other to relocate.

So of course that was what was on my mind late one sultry night as I shared the back balcony with the afore-mentioned best friend. We were- well, debating isn’t the word so much as discussing- whether or not I should offer to move cross-country. In theory it wasn’t such a big deal, to pick up and go: after all, I’d done it so very many times before. But the feminist in me truly cringed at the idea of moving for a man, regardless of whether or not he would ever ask it of me. More importantly, however, was this; my life was fantastic! Why would I want to leave it? For the first time in my life, there was not a single thing (or person) to run away from!

Ah, but then again, for the first time in my life, there was something- someone- to run to. Someone who knew who I had been (all the many, many incarnations of that girl), someone who loved who I was, and someone who wanted to stick around to see who I would become in the future. Someone who would give me the jacket off his own back to weather life’s storms, but who would never try to keep me from playing in them. Someone who would make wherever I was home, no matter how many times I changed my mind about where that place was located.

So I made my choice: I ran home (against his protestations that he didn’t want me abandoning anything for him). And it was worth it- because I’ve never felt so free as I do when he’s kissing me.