H is for Home is where my heart lives!
I was born in a little town in Cumbria, not far from the Lake District, called Barrow in Furness, & when I was child, I always used to say to my mum that the man I marry, won't live in Barrow, so neither will I.... Not for one second did I ever imagine this coming true.
I lived in Barrow for all my childhood life, just me, my mum & my 3 sisters.
Then when I was 17 years old, & I was spending the summer with my friend Katie, I got talking to guy that lived in Leeds. His name was Neil & he was 6 years older than me. He was charming, funny, & very witty, but most of all, he was totally in to me!
At first we just made friends & talked about ourselves, he told me about his family & his job & I told him about my family & what I was doing in college. We spoke solely over text messages & phone calls for 5 months, some nights we would find ourselves talking until early hours in the morning, & as the months went on, I found myself slowly opening up to this guy, telling him all my deep dark secrets from my childhood that I had locked away in my mind & vowed never to speak of with anyone! This guy was doing something to me, he was getting into my head & I was getting scared, because I was developing feelings, but he was all the way in Leeds!! 3.5 hours away from me on a train & I was a college student that earnt approximately, naff all!!
Then one day, after we had been talking around 4.5 months, he asked me if I wanted to meet him after his holiday with his friends in Crete! I didn't even need to think twice, my answer straight away was yes! so I started planning it with Katie, about how we would meet half way, but when I told my mum she hit the roof, said I was only 17 years old & if this guy liked me & wasn't a pervert, he would come all the way to Barrow! (yikes she was scary!) So I approached the subject with Neil & of course he completely understood my mum's concerns & said yes... I was really nervous now! I was finally going to be meeting this guy!! We agreed to meet on September 9th 2005, he cleared it with work & he traveled to Barrow to meet me, & I took Katie & my twin for moral support, because I didn't want to meet this guy on my own!
That first weekend will stick in my mind forever.... it was perfect!
That will forever be, the weekend I fell completely & utterly in love, for the first time ever. After spending 2 days with me, Neil went back to Leeds on the Sunday, which was so awful because I just didn't want him to leave. I knew then that I wanted to marry this man. We planned to see each other again 5 weeks later, but when he got on the train & left, he hadn't even gotten two stops away before he was texting me & asking if I wanted to go to Leeds the following weekend & he would pay! From there, we did a 1.5 year long distant relationship of him coming to Barrow & me going to Leeds so we could see each other! mostly me going to Leeds because I loved the traveling - him not so much!
Then in July 2006 Neil proposed & asked me to marry him, so in July 2007 once I had finished my third year of college, I made the biggest decision of my life, to leave my family in Barrow in Furness & move in with him in Leeds! I am not going to lie, it was hard, leaving my mum & sisters, to start a new life with Neil in a place where I didn't know anyone but him & his mum & dad! I did struggle for the first year, I always wanted to come home, it was really quite bad! but then when I finally started working & I wasn't stuck in the house all day, it got much easier.
Myself & Neil have now been together for 14 years this September, we have two beautiful children together & we have been married for 11 years in June this year too & I couldn't be happier. I still visit my family in Barrow & it's weird, because I actually appreciate Barrow in Furness a hell of a lot more now I don't live there.. I love going home to see everyone & seeing how much it's changed each time I go, because there is always something new!
There are so many people I know that say "long distant relationships don't work" but for me it did & I honestly wouldn't change a thing.
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