Once Smitten Twice as Shy

so i'm smitten. smitten with an Irishman who lives halfway around the world.

part of me is angry with myself - how can i be so silly as to indulge myself in this fantasy of trans-atlantic love coming to fruition.

part of me is terrified, just waiting for the cards to fall and the castle to crumble.

and the other part is just smitten: giddy at the prospect of possibility, heart all a flutter at sweet words, smile pasted to my face smitten.

i've tried long distance too many times to count. it seems i'm better at keeping things going if the other person isn't actually present. i think the distance forces me to imagine and when you imagine you tend to lean towards the ideal, as opposed to the real. it isn't until they appear and you realize the ideal doesn't exist that it becomes hard to overcome that obstacle and inevitably it's always fallen apart.

is it possible for that to change? is it possible that with age and "wisdom" and through lessons learned, that it's possible for something long distance and ephemeral, to become something real and constant? is there a chance that my Irishman could end up here, or i back there, and something real could blossom out of this inexplicable magnetism that pulled us together in a pub in Dingle?

i don't know.

i read this blog post today about a girl who risked it all and moved across the country to be with someone she loved, only to have it fall apart and now she's moving back home again. her question was should she have risked it all and leaped. i found myself thinking as i read, "of course you should have! you never know what could happen and if you don't try, you'll always wonder. a part of you will always wonder."

why is it that it's so easy to offer someone else advice, but hard to give yourself the same?

always wondering - now that's a nasty trap. it's caught me many a time and held me hostage more times than i can count. Conversely, the times where i've given it my all and understood the game, when it hasn't worked out i've come out the other side much stronger and with better peace of mind.

and if i didn't try.....it wouldn't be much of a story eh? "The Life of Rilla - she existed, she avoided and she settled" not much of a book.

i think i'll stay smitten and try not to shy away from experiencing life, love and everything in between.

Power of Possibility

I feel the need to write down a special moment from my recent trip to Ireland. It's a silly thing, but there's always a possibility that something amazing could come from it. There have been so many moments that i wished i had written down, so i'm going to indulge myself and write about this one while it's not only fresh in my mind, but not yet tainted by any misfortune. 

Right after Christmas i jetted off to Ireland with S to go and visit C who recently relocated for work. During the trip we took off on a road trip around the Republic of Ireland and at one point turned up in Dingle - a darling seaside gaeltacht (irish speaking region). 

We were enjoying dinner in John Benny's (the best warm venison salad ever - still craving it) and this group was singing behind me in the pub (Lumiere) this beautifully, haunting music. I kept twisting around in my seat to watch the ladies sing and at one point i noticed this handsome man leaning against a beam near the bar, also watching the performers. 

He looked like he had walked right out of Yaletown - collared shirt with a v-neck sweater over top and a blazer. So out of place for Ireland, where it must be said, the men don't exactly dress that well. i couldn't tear my eyes away and throughout the evening we kept catching one another's eyes; smiles were exchanged; thumbs up were given (by him). 

At one point in the evening, i got up to buy a round of Guinness for myself and the ladies and while waiting up at the bar, who should happen to stroll up but this fine specimen of a man. He asked the waitress if his friend had ordered drinks and she said yes and then he turned to me and said hello. Much to my surprise, he was Irish! Of course when i opened my mouth the first thing he said was "oh you're american."  Of course i corrected him! But there was something in his eyes and he held my attention fast. 

He invited us ladies out to another pub but S and C were ready to head back to the B&B, but my Irishman and i exchanged contact details as he lives in Dublin and we'd both be back there in a couple days. i figured that'd be the end of that, until the next day i found an email waiting for me from my Irishman. 

After lovely worded emails back and forth, we finally met up in Dublin on my last night there. Again that same magnetic pull was present and throughout the evening i couldn't help but be pulled in by his presence as we all chit chatted (S and C were there as well). When we finally had to leave, so that we could catch at least a couple hours of sleep before our very early flight, my Irishman walked us to a cab where he pulled me in for this unexpected, but definitely not unwelcome, kiss. You couldn't scrape the smile off my face if you'd used a knife. I woke a few hours later to head to the airport, with a text saying "could easily have kidnapped you and eloped on my bicycle together! best. kiss. ever." 

Since then we've kept in touch nearly every day, even now that i'm back in Vancouver, and my Irishman has even talked about coming out to Canada this summer. While rational, often disappointed me knows that it's probably best left as a beautiful moment capping off a lovely vacation, the young girl who desperately wants to be a hopeless romantic and believe that fairy tales and romantic comedy moments happen in real life, can't help but be open to possibility. 

What if my Irishman is the be all end all for me? What if he's the one who marked the end of life as i knew it and the beginning of an entirely new chapter in my personal life? 

My Irishman said the other day that if something ever does come from this we'll have a good story. I thought i better write it down because whether it becomes a love story for the ages or merely a moment in time, it's a reminder that anything is possible at any time, no matter where you happen to be.