It’s not a love story

I’m not gonna say it was a love story, an epic romance for all time, because if you knew me, you’d have trouble putting together the idea of me, silly me, with the idea of a love story and romance.

Something which will seem even more difficult to imagine is the fact that I knew all this was coming - the foreign life, the foreign romance and ultimately, the foreign husband.

On the surface, in the conscious world, I laughed at the idea that I could possibly meet someone while abroad, although people finding out about my trip (and about my recent break-up with my American fiancé) couldn’t stop kidding me about it. I kidded right back, not giving it a second thought.

Actually, I did give it a second thought, this idea that I could meet someone while abroad because a few years earlier when I was (more or less) happily engaged to my American fiancé, I had had a premonition. As it has only happened to me twice in my life, it is difficult to describe what it is actually like to have a premonition. It is something like déjà vu, but set in the future. It is like your awareness of time slips back for a moment and you catch a glimpse (or sometimes a whole look) of something that will happen in the future…but the picture is so elusive.

While waking in the morning one day in the US, still lying in bed I stretched, and looked up at the bright sun, sky and trees out my window. I took a deep breath and became pre-occupied by a picture in my head. I was waking up next to my husband (somehow I was sure he was my husband and not my boyfriend) and as he rolled over to me and smiled, I could see him, I could smell him, and I could hear him as he spoke a few words in a language I didn’t understand or even recognize. It was so real…and then my consciousness snapped back into place and the picture was gone. It was years before I planned a trip to Poland, and I had all but forgotten about it. Maybe it was a dream after all?

But maybe that’s the reason I couldn’t take my eyes off Misiu the first time I saw him. Maybe that’s why till this day I cannot resist nestling into his neck to smell him. Maybe that’s why I remember so distinctly the thrill I felt the first morning he rolled over in bed to smile at me and ask “Wstajemy?” with me not understanding what he was saying.

Sometimes I have my doubts about the life I have chosen here in Poland, but then I look at Misiu and our girls and I know everything is just how it is supposed to be.