During the summer of 2009 I had a visitor from a far away land. We had been friends online for many years and had developed a really great friendship. He'd been there for me like so many other online friends had been during the roughest periods of my life over a ten year period. So one day earlier in the year of 2009 Nikolaj had told me that he was planning to visit Florida and he wanted me to come and visit with him in Tampa. He planned to spend a week down there and then wanted to come up to Lake City where I lived to visit and to go on a little bit of a tour of whatever I chose to show him being he was going to be the tourist. This was going to be his first trip to America from his own country Greenland.
Funny thing is, more people than not don't have a clue where the country Greenland is even geographically located which is a little disconcerting as well as amusing. At that time I had never been across the big pond so other than seeing the photographs over the years of places like Greenland (Nikolaj's) native land as well as photographs relating to France (Alain's) native land, I have been lucky enough to get some geography lessons over the years because of these two men. Anyone that says you cannot make friends with people on the internet don't have a clue at all to what they are talking about. It takes time to build a relationship but with the internet being so easy to access these days it's not to terribly hard to make friends over the years with some really great people. I have noticed that a lot of them seem to have talents in things too. The internet has made our world a much smaller place.
When Nikolaj came to visit in August something unexpected happened between us. Neither of us was expecting what would happen either. We had been friends for some long but neither of us had thought anything about going beyond that at the time. I was still feeling the effects from hardships of a previous 21 year long marriage. It ended tragically with the death of my first husband and the loss that hit our children the hardest. It was a tragedy in proportionate levels that would effect my children for some time afterwards due to the nature of how his life ended. So I was still working my way through that and helping the kids and it was a tough road indeed.
Then there came Nikolaj. Like this shining beacon on a foggy morning. The smile on his face, the humor, the way he talked to me and how he made me feel so comfortable. I had never met anyone like him. So before we knew it we became a couple over the following months. His first visit was incredible and I made sure to take him on some tourist visiting while he was in Florida for his first visit. He then came back for a second trip in the spring of 2010. He spent about six weeks with me in Florida and our bond deepened and grew in leaps and bounds. Before he left he asked me to marry him and how could I say no. He made me feel like a princess. I wanted to be with him. Of course we had a of things to figure out too over the next several months and it wasn't easy making all the decisions we had to make relating to our becoming a couple as well as being together under one roof.
So in December of 2010 he flew me to Greenland to see how my health would react to Greenlandic weather as well as the lifestyle. Of course I was in awe because I had never crossed the big pond so being the newbie that I was, everything was like "the first time." I took lots of photographs too. The flight to Greenland turned out to be rough but once I arrived in Greenland it was much better after that. The culture here in Greenland is like nothing I had ever been exposed to. The people here seem uncorrupted by the world that moves around this island. Villages have no infrastructures between them, so the only way to get from one village to another is to fly or go by boat or ship. I have to say that the entire six weeks I was in Greenland was both eye opening as well as exhilarating. I can't remember feeling this free ever. It was quite liberating. Then we made the decision to get married while I was in Greenland so on January 2nd, 2011 we got married. Of course I had to return to the United States and we still hadn't made a finalized decision on who was going to make the big move.
It was hard leaving him after being there in Greenland for the six weeks and being newlyweds only compounded that. It was very difficult in fact to be so many thousands of miles apart but life goes on as we all know. After a few weeks we had finally come to the conclusion that it was better for me to do the move than for him to. He has this great job that pays well and right now with the current financial crisis that my own country is suffering along with the high unemployment rates being up, it only made sense for him to stay in his and me come to him and put everything in storage and sell what wasn't going into storage.
I had four horses too and had to sell them or try to anyway along with a vehicle. I have since got three of the four horses into new homes but alas my oldest horse which is the best horse I have ever had is still currently being boarded. I haven't found the right home for him and I sure do miss him too. I had been barrel racing with him for three years and I had finally started getting a lot better with my riding too. I sure do miss riding that is for sure.
More writing coming soon.............
