The Other Side

Hey guys just wanted to update you. Liam now has a blog that explores the male side of things.

You can find it here: http://oneoceantwoworlds.blogspot.com/

Picking up the Pieces

So I didn't get any topics that people wanted me to cover and I haven't written anything in quite sometime so I've decided to just write a little ditty about random stuff.  I haven't written anything because of some blessings and some really horrible trials. I've been battling an infection for 4 months now and it's still an on-going issue. I'm hoping that this will be officially departing me soon. Along with this I've been horribly depressed and honestly haven't been doing anything. It's difficult for me to cope when I feel like crap so I'm pushing through and hoping to come out on the other side victorious.

As for my blessings, I was blessed to have Liam here for two weeks and it was amazing to have him with me. My aunt in South Carolina bought us Engagement photos, which turned out amazing!!! Here is a sample:

We got a lot of wedding planning (as much as we can) done and we got to be together like a real couple for a while. Sadly he had to leave and now I'm picking up the pieces and twiddling my thumbs till Feburary when I see him again in England. One other blessing is that I am now currently a freelance writer at Rochester Women Magazine and will be having my first piece published in a couple of weeks. Gotta be greatful for the little things I guess.

It's been a hard couple of months, nothing seems to go right. Someday I feel like I'm ready to just give up and live out my days as manic depressive lonely writer. On those days it always seems like Liam has the biggest smile and the warmest heart. He is always there to tip me back up and help me feel more positive. I guess the worst part for me is knowing that with the holidays rapidly approaching, this is the first and last time I am going to be alone for Christmas and New Years. Like I said before, thankfully, this is the last time I will ever have to be alone for the holidays. I can't wait till Liam and I can actually open our presents together and spend Christmas morning together. Oddly enough this Halloween season has been particularly difficult because of the fact that there have been so many parties to go to with my friends and I am going to them alone, for the first time in years. It really makes you wish that someone was there with you. Someone to hold your hand when there is a lull in the coversation and someone to drive home with at night. It sucks.
While this dilemma still is daunting I'm trying to make light of it by saying that with every lonely holiday that passes I am that much closer to be with Liam in Feburuary. We're almost down to less than 3 months! I can't believe it's been a month or so since he was here.

Even though a lot of days are hard and that my life seems to be on the rampage to eat me alive, Liam always manages to make it worth fighting back and the one thing I try to remember is that in 6 months I will never have to be without Liam again. I can't wait to be his wife.

Keep your head up guys! Just remember it's not forever!

<3 Amazzle

LEND ME YOUR EARS.

Just so I know people are actually reading this (maybe...probably... hopefully...) let me know if you have any questions or issues you'd like me to write on. I'm a pretty open person and I'd love to hear the things that your struggling with so that I can be helpful and encouraging! Just leave me a comment on this post and I'll be happy to write something up on your topic.

Thanks guys! :)

How can you Mend a Lonely Heart?

When I was younger and I finished a project, I don’t ever remember feeling anxious for the next one.  Now that the I-129F form has been in review for a month now I have this ridiculous anxiety that keeps telling me to do more.  With Liam’s visit right around the corner (aka TOMORROW!!!). This is a very exciting visit because not only will we be getting our engagement pictures done and celebrating 7 months of bliss, we will be together for two whole weeks. This is the longest visit we have been blessed to have. It’s very exciting because we have a ton to do with the wedding and researching venues and other accessories.

                The down fall to this visit is what comes after. Liam is, hopefully, starting a new job soon and will not be able to visit after September. My company starts our open enrollment and it's literally exhausting because it's so busy that we can't take time off till February.  After this trip I won’t see Liam again till February 7^th 2013. With the foreknowledge of my impending doom, I have started trying to be more proactive and find things to keep myself busy. I have vowed to use this time apart to better myself and keep a more positive attitude about our situation and just life in general. This is one of those things that people refer to being “easier said than done”.  It’s no secret to anyone who is friends with me on Facebook knows that I get a bit depressed (this is possibly an understatement) when Liam is not around. Others who are experiencing the same long distance relationship knows it gets hard when all you can do is harp on the fact that you are not together.  

                Once Liam and I are a part, I go through what I call The Lonely Process. For the first couple of days after Liam leaves, I cry. I refuse to see people and keep mainly to the confides of my room. As weeks go by I get better and end up just secluding myself.  My diet consists of any kind of junk food I can get my hands on, shoveling it in my face and wallow. A month after Liam leaves I begin to be proactive and start working out and doing everything I can to make sure our visa process goes by faster. Plans with friends and family start to creep their way into my schedule. I begin working on a new project which includes me frequently changing my room furniture around.  Around a month or two before I know I’m going to see Liam again I begin what Facebook knows as "The Countdown". My work friends would refer to it as the paper chain link I have on my cubical wall that tells me how many days are left. This usually starts around 40 days before I see Liam. Then, just a week before I see Liam, I go crazy, getting everything ready and  being happier than I have been in the past however months. Listing my reaction out I can see how this seems ridiculous and pathetic. This is only just 3 month separation, imagine the magnitude I am about to face with 7 months. 

             As much as I am dreading this, I am determined to keep a more positive attitude and use my time wisely. This is going to be the last holiday that I am in America for. Next Christmas, Liam and I will be married and living in England! Today is a perfect day to take charge and change things. I have decided to start taking my writing seriously and have enrolled myself in some writing classes. My life has been too filled of drama to ignore. I have tons of ideas and it's time I used my talent to make a name for myself. Everyone tells me how important it is for me to find myself in this time and I really think that they are right. Soon I won't be an individual anymore and I will have someone else to consider. I will not have the opportunity to be on my own and figure out what makes Amanda, Amanda. After college I lost my passion and I need to gain that back. Somewhere between the drama of 2011 and getting my life in order I lost the discipline that college had instilled in me. I am also going to re-apply to The University of London: University of Education. I want to pursue my English degree and actually start a career that has something to do with my major. I shovel out hundreds of dollars to pay back the government for a diploma that looks pretty on my shelf. I need to start thinking about putting that to good use. I need to do this for myself, I can't spend everyday crying that I am not with Liam, unfortunately it won't change anything. This time is time for me to get all my ducks in a row to be able to move to England eventually and to be Amanda while I still can. In order to make a happy relationship, I first have to make myself happy. 

          To all my readers (I'm not sure how many of you actually read this), take advice from someone who knows, harping on the distance will not make it disappear. Those three thousand miles will be there wither you're crying and stuffing your face of cookie dough or not. Laying around depressed listening to My Chemical Romance will not bring him/her any closer to you. As Liam tells me, it just makes the other person frustrated and upset because they can't do anything. Take a lesson from me, the worst offender of this and "pledge" to change. Make yourself happy so that in turn you can make your partner happy. Seeing you loving life will make them just as cheerful. 

      So ladies and gentlmen, seeing that Liam is going to be here in 1 MORE DAY, I should probably pretend like I'm actually going to sleep (when in reality we all know I'm going to lay in my bed squealing that Liam will be here in 48 hours!!!!!)



Just so I know people are actually reading this (maybe...probably... hopefully...) let me know if you have any questions or issues you'd like me to write on. I'm a pretty open person and I'd love to hear the things that your struggling with so that I can be helpful and encouraging! Just leave me a comment on this post and I'll be happy to write something up on your topic.

Thank you all for reading! Keep your chin up and hang in there! :) 

            

STOP: FASHION TIME

Hey guys, I'm taking a moment to give a shout out to my friend Morgan! She has this AWESOME blog about fashion on a normal budget and I'm addicted to it.

Read it guys, seriously, pure awesome-ness.

http://treasurextrove.blogspot.com/


Thank guys!

Visa Secrets

The day has finally arrived! Liam and I have submitted our I-129F forms aka Fiance visa!

Here it is on it's way to the USCIS!

That packet is the reason as to why I have been away from the blog and now, apparently, grind my teeth from stress. This packet took me officially a month to complete, but it's done, finally!

For this post I figure I would share some of the knowledge I have gained from this experience.



So let's take it page by page. Oh, and by the way this is FOR THE USA ONLY! Here is where I got all my information from: http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis

Page 1: You are going to want to put a G-1145, E-Notification of Application/Petition Acceptance form. This form will entitle you to get a notification through e-mail or text as to what the status of your application and what the outcome is.

Page 2: Cover letter. You can find examples of this form online. Honestly, I just put "Cover letter to I-129F form" into Google and came up with LOADS of responses

Page 3: The Payment. The I-129F visa cost $340.00 currently for the 2012 year. You will need to make sure you have the money in your account because they will only try and make the payment 3 times, after that you're screwed.

Page 4: The I-129F form itself. This form is very straightforward and doesn't require too much thinking, unless like me you forget if your fiance was born in 1988 or 1989 in which case you have to keep asking. Maybe that's just me.

Page 5: The I-129F Supplement: Part B. On the I-129F form, question 18, there is a space that asks you to describe how you two met and if you have seen each other in the past two years, which is a requirement for the visa. DO NOT TRY TO FIT IT ALL IN THAT TINY BOX. The immigration officers do not have microscopes in which to read the tiny print. Instead make this page; the Supplement. In here you will want to state who you are and when you met. Liam and I met on May 24th 2011. We have seen each other 3 times in person and we notated them on this form.

Page 6 & 7: The G-325A forms aka Biographic Information for both you and your fiance. This was the biggest pain in the butt. Liam had to fill out his own form and I had to fill out mine. It states that all the forms have to be original but I spoke with an immigration officer who said its fine to have a photo copy of the original form. Make sure EVERYTHING is filled out for both of you and correctly. We had a major time trying to figure out the Family information cause he wrote his step mother was his ex-wife! HA-HA

Page 8: Birth certificate and other information. This information is for you to prove you are an American citizen. You need to have a valid birth certificate or you have to have photo copies of YOUR WHOLE PASSPORT, cover to cover. I just did my birth certificate. My last name changed when my mother re-married I had to have a proof of adoption and my new birth certificate, I also had to include my mother's new marriage license.

Page 9 & 10: Letter certifying intent to marry. I LOVED doing this. It was so nice to see in writing that Liam and I were getting married. We each wrote a letter that stated that we are willing and legally able to marry each upon Liam's entry into the US. Its really not a big deal, but I love the little things.

Page 11: Proof of having met in person in the past two years. I have seen a lot of examples online of this. I still think my way was more organized and effective. First I printed out the four airplane itineraries. My trip from November, Liam's first trip in March, my trip in May and his trip in September this year. Then I printed out photos from each trip (Good tip: ALWAYS TAKE AS MANY PHOTOS AS YOU CAN WHEN YOU ARE TOGETHER! Make sure it has some recognizable landmarks too).  I labeled each picture with who was in them, where they were taken and what day they were taken on. Then I signed each of them and dated them. I put them all into an envelope and wrote " (blank) Trip" and attached it to the significant itinerary. It look very organized and put together.


Page 12: Proof of ongoing relationship: This was the HARDEST part. Liam and I, in the year and a half we've known each other have 9,000 e-mails between us. This is not including the everyday Skype calls and periodic phone calls. We didn't know which ones to include, which ones would be too much information and which ones would be beneficial to send. We ended up picking a bunch of e-mails from each month. We even included Skype call captions, like still pictures of us Skyping. I also added our very first conversation to each other. It was a nice way to end our visa process, by going through our history and reading how we feel in love with each other.

By the way I want to make sure you all know that EVERYTHING that you include in your visa MUST be SIGNED AND DATED by you the petitioner. The declaration of meeting, the intent to marry and the bio sheet must be signed and dated by your fiance. This is VERY important.


This is everything we included. So far we haven't heard anything except that the visa is now in Virginia being processed and being put through initial review. How exciting! I know it's been so long since I've posted but my life has been crazy lately. I haven't been busy or anything but things have just been one shot down after another. I'm not going to lie, long distance relationships are simply the hardest thing I have ever gone through, especially one where your engaged to be married. The only thing that makes it worth your while is knowing that the person on the other side of that computer/phones loves you as much as you love them. Every night Liam and I crawl into our beds and have fifteen minutes to ourselves. We talk about everything from YouTube videos to the fact that in fifteen days we're going to see each other! I like to call this "cuddle time" and it is the reason I get up in the morning, because I know that once I get home from work I will be able to have him all to myself , if only for those small fifteen minutes. If you are in a long distance relationship I URGE you to give each other at least fifteen minutes a day, talk about your day or don't talk at all and just give yourselves time to look into each other eyes. You will feel closer that you are. Trust me.

Until next time. Keep smiling guys! :)

Rules and Regulations

Work was extremely slow this week due to the Independence holiday so I decided to use this down wisely and locate rules on International marriage. In movies, our favorite actresses and actors make it look so easy. It's a easy concept, one person moves over to the others country. Well it should be, but it's not. Thanks to all those who abuse the system and are looking for hand outs I need to fill out form after form after form. Devote hours upon hours into researching everything I need to prove to the UK government that I am in love with a British Citizen and I want to spend the rest of my life with him.

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 

The Big One

     "The very best place to start," says Julie Andrews, "is right at the beginning." Taking a tip from her that is exactly what I'll do. My name is Amanda. I am 23 years old and I am a college graduate. I graduated from SUNY Fredonia in 2011 with a degree in English literature and writing. I work for insurance company answer phones by saying "Thank you for calling Customer Service. This is Amanda, how can I help you?". I am also in a long distance relationship. In May 2011 I met Liam and we hit it off right away. Certain circumstances prohibited us from dating and so we remained good friends. The only thing is Liam lives in England and I live in the United States, hanging out is kind of hard. In November 2011, my best friend Erica and I went to England to meet Liam in person. Once I saw him in person I knew my feelings were more than that of a friend nature. When I got home my circumstance ended and Liam and I started dating February 9th 2012. On May 28th 2012 Liam proposed to me on the beach in Palma de Mallorca. We are planning a wedding for June 1st 2013!

    That's our story in a nutshell without all the drama. Liam and I have been through a lot and now we're ready to spend our lives together. There is just one little thing in the way.

This:

The Atlantic Ocean. Making three thousand miles of distance between us. Forcing us to travel a 16 hour flight where I spend most of it hyperventilating until we land, not because I hate flying but because I am SUPER impatient. I want everything yesterday and it was one of my biggest flaws. This flaw makes a long distance relationship VERY difficult, more so than need be. Throughout my life I have been in other long distance relationship though obviously this one is different and more meaningful. Therefore I am more impatient than ever to end this long distance and be with Liam everyday! 

I want to go from this:

To This:

For people who have stumbled upon/been nagged by me to read this I want this blog to offer up some guidance or some comfort to others dealing with the same thing I am. I want to comfort you in that fact that you're not alone and there are others out there that know how you feel. I also want to guide you in how you can make long distance work, it doesn't have to seem like a chore and it doesn't have make you want to eat a whole tube of ice cream alone. It takes two people willing to work for a common goal that makes long distance relationships work. And long distance relationships CAN work,  don't let anyone tell you otherwise.


Although I want to make something clear, I'm talking LONG distance relationships. 


Like this:

If you do not have to FLY to get to your significant other or drive more than an hour or two, I can't give you my sympathy, while I don't deny that you have a longer distance relationship than others, this is still convenient even if it doesn't feel like it. You still have the ability to visit them every other weekend or everyday, all you have to do is put in more effort in than others to see them. My situations and others have to wait MONTHS to see our partners. We have to pay hundreds of dollars for airline tickets to see our loved ones. Then when we are with them we only have a couple of days to spend with them and then we have to part again for months. I'm not trying to down play your relationship, I just wouldn't call it a long distance one, maybe we can call it a short long distance relationship. Honestly, I would kill to be an hour away from Liam, it would be so much easier than this. Even though this is hard, I wouldn't change a thing about it. I love Liam and we're going to be a stronger marred couple because of this. He is worth it. 

I am going to post every Friday and I hope to see you all reading. 

Love, Peace and Chicken Grease, 

Amanda