So far away...

If someone were to ask me if I am happy, I wouldn't quite be able to look them in the eye while saying, "Yes." Though I am joyful and have laugh-filled days, every day is tinged a dusty yellow by a deep sadness I carry everywhere with me.

I miss California. I miss my friends and my sister. I miss Kaida and Patty O'Green. I miss driving over 50 mph, long stretches of freeway, Payson library, and driving around Irvine with Poom. I miss Kendall and Kobe. I miss my new sisters. I miss early-morning conversations with Harris and being interrupted by a constant stream of "hello"s while having lunch with David. I miss Laemmle, having my own apartment, and the sound of the city.

But all that is past, and every day here is a reminder that my childhood and young adult grace period are over, and now I'm faced squarely with reality. And he's better armed.

I like my life here. I am in love with Dominick. I love my family, the people, the weather, the feel of this little island. But sometimes I grow tired of its limited 30 mile stretch, and I wish I could grow wings and fly to the States for the winter. I don't want to relocate, but I wish to visit, to be closer to the people I love than a Skype call can afford.

And more and more I've been realizing and growing disheartened by the fact that all those that I left behind won't even be a part of my union with Dominick. My best friend feels irrelevent these days, and none of the people I care for have been able to watch our love grow. All the people I care about are in the States, and I'll be lucky enough to get my siser out here let alone Harris or David or Poom. No one is here to help me plan, giggle with me, gossip with me, or go crazy with me. No one to attend my bridal shower or bachelorette party. I can't ask my best friends to be in my bridal party. And when I turn to be announced as Mrs. Dominick Santos for the first time, it will be to a room full of strangers save six (maybe eight) faces.

I never planned (as if you could plan for such a thing) to move far away and meet someone so that everyone who has been a part of my life for the past twenty-one years is unavoidably excluded. I had always hoped that, were my best friends to be absent from my wedding, it would have been because I knowingly planned to be married abroad. But now it's just that I have no other choice.

And so, I miss everyone I left behind more than ever, and more and more I feel stretched between two places, two peoples. California isn't my state, but this isn't my island. This isn't my church. These aren't my friends. And out of the one hundred people that we're inviting to the wedding, ninety-four of them won't be my family.

Except for the man waiting at the end of the aisle, this isn't my dream. It's merely a final technicality.

So far way, doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore? It would be so fine to see your face at my door. Doesn't help to know that you're just time away. Long ago I reached for you, and there you stood. Holding you again could only do me good. How I wish I could, but you're so far away.