Just how do you prove that on paper? How do you SHOW someone on paper that you are in love with someone. Apparently, like this:
E-mails, private messages, plane tickets, confirmations and legal documents stating that I have been conversing back and forth with Liam and that I have seen him in the last two years. My love for Liam has to be proven with e-mails and plan confirmations. I wish I could have a immigration officer spend a day with me to see everything we do for each other. The time we sacrifice, the agenda's we give up, the conversations we have and the hardships we share.
An average day for Liam and I starts with us opening our eyes. Liam has a perfectly comfortable queen size bed, but forgoes it to sleep on his love seat sofa so that we can webcam through the night. We do this so that we feel as though we're sleeping together. I've found it hard to sleep without knowing he's around, so Liam curls up on his couch every night to comfort me. If Liam has to work that day, he will wake me up at 3 or 4 am , as it is 8am or 9am for him, and say "good morning" and then rush to work. If it is Liam's day off then he will mute his microphone and hang out until I wake up hours later. I work 9-5:30 and I have a forty-five minute commute everyday. We can't really text each other while Liam is at work so we tend to keep it to his breaks and lunch and even then I'm not guaranteed to talk to him as Liam gets distracted easily. Isn't that right Liam? Liam usually gets out of work at noon my time. My job has me on the computer anyway so I tend to slip him an e-mail every once in a while to talk. It's hard for me to continue that throughout the day as I don't want to abuse my job and get in trouble. Once 5:30pm hits I run out the door and into my car. My co-workers always comment on how fast I peel out of the parking lot. On an average day, mild traffic and me going five or ten miles over the speed limit, I get home around 6:15pm. At this time it is 11:15pm Liam's time. If Liam is awake we may get an hour and a half to talk on Skype before he heads to bed for work the next day. This means I only see my Fiance for an hour and a half at night if I'm lucky. Then when he goes to sleep, I still have two or three hours till I need to go to bed for work. In this time I am usually UK job hunting or working on our Fiance Visa paperwork. I don't work weekends so I tend to use that time to see friends and family, but if I hang out with people Liam usually sleeps in his bed, leaving me to wait. I try to keep myself awake until 4am so I can say good morning to Liam, hence why I'm writing this blog so late. It's hard to have a social life on this kind of schedule, when friends want to make plans I have to try and plan it around Liam's sleep schedule. If I can't coordinate it, I have to wait a whole other day to see Liam.
I know it doesn't seem like a big deal. I'm sure you know people who go longer without seeing their loved ones. The fact of the matter is Liam and I sacrifice a lot to be in this relationship. We put more effort in trying to talk to each other than a LOT of couples who live in same house do. Communication is all Liam and I have. We look forward to the times when we can just lay in bed with each other and just hold each other. We long for those time when we can wake up next to each other in the same bed in the same time zone.
How can I reduce all these emotions and sacrifices onto paper? How can I relate all this in e-mails and photos? The worst part is we're not even guaranteed this visa. If we get married they don't have to hand us a visa. I could be denied a passport because the UK government doesn't think I'm in love with Liam.
This week I have read so much negative information about visas. Information stating that my financial status could be what ruins my chances or the lack of sufficient proof of a relationship. After all this reading, all I could do was put my head down and sob. After going through so many trails, when was it ever going to come together for us? The one thing I know is that Liam and I will never give up on this. We have so much love and commitment going in this relationship that we will find away around it. There is a reason why we choose "I won't give up" by Jason Marz as our wedding song.
To my readers who are in the same situation as I, don't give up. Don't let the frustrations of our your situation bog you down. You are in love with someone amazing. Just because they are in a different country doesn't mean that your relationship can't be as real as any other relationship. Everything you are going through is so going to be worth it in the long run. With all the negative outlook on International Marriage and getting a visa just keep in mind the positives, I struggle with this myself. As Liam tells me all the time the reason they do this is to weed out the people who are just in it for the visa, they want to reward those, like us, who have struggled. So even though you get frustrated and bogged down by the mushy lovey couple stuff around you, just remember you will be rewarded for your efforts with a beautiful stamp on your passport one day! That's what I'm holding onto.
Love, Peace and Chicken Grease,
Amanda
