the wait

It’s done. The visa application is in the mail. All 4 pounds of it. Every blog post, every photo of us, the banks statements, the pay slips, the marriage certificate, a Skype log clocking hundreds of chat hours, a selection of correspondence chosen from a whopping 3,500 emails exchanged over the past 3 years, and text messages — enough text messages to put a teenage girl to shame. Our life… printed, stapled together and shipped off for some random person to read and decide our fate.

So now we wait. 1 month? 2 months? 3 months? Who knows. We’re used to this… the waiting. It’s the story of our life as a couple. But this time, it feels BIG, you know? Because WHAT IF? What if it takes 6 months? Or worse… What if it gets rejected? He keeps telling me to have faith (he’s the optimist in the relationship, I’m the pessimist) and I know he’s right. I know. But WHAT IF???

He says he can’t account for world wars and hurricanes and freak lightning bolts and anything else that could possibly get in the way of us getting this visa in a timely manner. But he chooses to believe that it WILL get approved and it WILL arrive soon. I, on the other hand, get so engrossed in the distance between us that my brain short circuits and I forget all that is good. I’m so focused on the days we’re apart that I fail to see the bigger picture, the love that unites us, the future ahead of us. And it’s not 1 month, 2 months or 3 that is going to change that.

So today, I leave you with more wedding photos. The candid shots. The behind the scenes shots. The laughter, the hugs, the joy. The shots that remind me of all that is good and give me the patience and the faith I need to wait… just a little longer, or however long it takes.

Thank you so much to Roma, Michael and mom for snapping these shots. And for those who haven’t yet seen the first set of photos, you can find them here.