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.