There once was a wild yellow rose who lived deep in the heart of Texas.  When she was a little girl, with a little curl right in the middle of her forehead, she would run barefoot in the fields until the bottoms of her feet were black!  Then she would spin round and round until she fell to the ground.  Face turned upwards, she would stare at the clouds as they danced by, dreaming outrageous dreams.  And like all good fairy tales, when she grew up, she fell in love.

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I had been warned about the unique challenges of a long distance relationship. I was duly advised of their difficulty and near impossibility.  But, being a head strong Texan, I wasn’t gonna let a little challenge deter me.  And since we do everything bigger here, I reckoned if I was gonna do this long distance thing, I needed thousands of miles, a deep ocean and another continent!

Dating across an ocean for 16 months has been a unique experience.  Google Chat is a God-Send! I’ve spent more than one date night watching movies on Youtube while simultaneously video chatting on Gmail.  It’s time consuming, requires real affection (addiction!) and is tremendously cute in its way.  But no more.  The techno-geekery-love-affair is almost behind me. Gone will be the days of taking whatever cheap flight I can find, even if it requires a six hour layover in Atlanta.  Immigration at Dublin airport will no longer need to tease me, asking when the wedding is.  I am moving!!! Come September, 2010….or thereabouts, we are taking the plunge.  I am moving in, we are applying for my Visa stamp and life will be oh, so much sweeter, and less nerdy!

For years I have daydreamed of living in Ireland.  I thought it would be graduate school that granted that wish.  In the end, it is love of a Donegal man.
And when she closed her eyes and kissed him under the warm May sun, she knew.  Her heart forever belonged in Donegal.