{An Abridged Version}

For those of you who just recently heard about my upcoming move and have no idea what happened or what's going on, here is the (extremely) abridged version of the story. Also, I will be updating this blog to stay in touch with my soon-to-be-very-distant friends and family members about the adventures ahead.

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David Personius and I met in high-school speech and debate. He lived in the DFW area, I lived in the Houston area. We've known each other for more than 5 years now and during that time, we sort-of-not-really dated long-distance for about 5-6 months after graduating from high school, parted ways for 2 years, and reconnected over New Years 2013. We've been in a much longer-distance relationship since late January. (If you want the full 8-volume edition of that story, feel free to ask me about it in person sometime; it's a really cool but extremely long story.)

Facts you should know:

Grounds at my new apartment

- David is currently in training as a Green Beret (Army special forces) and has about 1 year of training left before he will be stationed for four years
- He lives in Fort Bragg, NC, I currently live in Houston, TX. If you don't have a map handy, just know that's six states of distance between us.
- Long distance relationships are the pits. After 5+ years of being 4 hours to 6 states apart from David, we can definitely testify to the validity of this fact.
- In the last six months, David and I have seen each other only twice (excluding FaceTime and Skype). 4 days in February (when we made our relationship Facebook official) and 3 days in April.

Given the distance, time, and military factors between us, David and I very much over this whole long-distance thing. In mid-April, we started talking about the idea of me moving to NC to be closer to David but I wasn't sure I wanted to up and leave my family and all the friends I've ever known in Texas. Two weeks later, at the end of April, I was able to fly to NC and see David for a few short days. We talked more about the idea of me moving but I wasn't sure it was even possible and I still was uncertain about leaving my friends and family.

All it took was getting on that stupid plane again for me to make up my mind. By the time the 4th state had flown by, I had decided that if there was any way it could possibly be worked out, I was going to move to North Carolina.

That Sunday night, I talked to my parents about it and they shared their approval and support of the idea.
Monday: I talked to my boss about the possibility of working remotely from home in NC.
Tuesday: My boss confirmed that I could keep my job and my benefits (which were at risk of being lost) and work from home.
Wednesday: David and I casually browsed apartments online.
Thursday: David visited a prospective apartment on my behalf and my application was approved by that evening.
Friday: The lease was in my inbox ready to be printed, signed, and notarized.

In the space of a week, I had a job and apartment in NC and the moving date was settled for July 4th.

A wise pastor once told me;

"If something is God's will, it will happen. If it's not His will, it won't happen."

By the end of the week, it had happened. I won't bother you with the details, but everything fell together so perfectly that David and I were fully amazed every step of the way. God is very gracious and generous -- I'll leave it at that.

That's the back-story.

Right now, I'm just plugging away at work and waiting for David to get back from SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape), which is essentially POW training. You don't want to know what they're doing to him and even if you did, I couldn't tell you because nobody's allowed to say anything about it.

David is due to get back on Friday (the 7th) so I'm pretty stoked to get to talk to him again. #understatement We haven't talked to each other -- not even letters -- since May 20th. This business of David being "off the grid" for weeks at a time is another reason we were motivated to look into the idea of me moving to NC.

The plan for July is that David will fly down to Texas before the move and help with the 17.5 hour drive. My family is driving with us in their truck with my bigger furniture and will help me get settled in as well.

Armed with enough caffeine to give the energizer bunny a heart-attack and 300+ country and classic rock songs on the iPod, we intend to drive straight through the night and get to my apartment in NC by lunchtime on Friday (July 5th).

And YES. To everybody who has asked, I am very excited about this but will miss my friends and especially family like crazy but I still want to move anyway. And no, you cannot convince me to stay.

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Feel free to ask any questions in the comment section! More exciting updates to come as moving day approaches and a whole new phase of life begins.