Another month is slowly approaching, very slowly but soon the first birthday will be a marking point. The first time his birthday will be celebrated while we are together.
Maybe I should start writing a small book as a gift; “my life with a bull (Taurus)” or maybe even better a Lebanese bull. Still it is a life getting use too. Some things come easy while others require some amending from both parties. Do we really have to listen what the stars are telling us? For from where we life they are as bright as a full moon everyday. Will I like what others can read would they be at our place looking up, and not looking at the bedroom window…?

Star signs are telling us that:

Taureans are thought to be persevering, strong individuals, who can also be quite "bull-headed". They can be dogged and determined when they have a goal in mind. Taureans are also quite sensual and, often, self-indulgent "beasts".
In love and relationship, there is an earthy kind of possessiveness that may be considered jealousy by some, but there is actually quite a difference between being possessive and being jealous. Taurus natives are rarely jealous and petty. They do, however, think of the people they love as theirs--it adds to their sense of security

Sagittarians have an often blind faith in people, and in the world. Their optimism is infectious, although it can get them into trouble from time to time. These are curious people who love to learn. Their idealistic nature is hard to miss.
Although generally easygoing, Sagittarius is a fire sign. This gives natives a generally quick temper. Fortunately, they're usually as quick to forget what got them angry in the first place.
The need for escape is generally strong, and some Solar Sagittarians come across as a little irresponsible. They're generally easy to forgive, however. After all, their direct, honest approach in life is admirable.

Not really a perfect couple one might think, but where can one find such a thing, if they even exist. Be it even further from the fact that we are not in the running for the first price, that honor has passed us some weeks ago. Looking and reading about us, I wonder who started writing this… some of these facts are further from the truth than the distance between our solar system and the next. Maybe on the reading night the stars were covered by a thin layer of clouds.
When in the pale moonlight I look next to me, I see my man, the man I love and share my life with, but once and a while I feel the little urge to kick him. Not only because he is snoring. Knowing what I know, I am aware that he sometimes feels the same.
When in love we think so much is going to be so much easier, why do we not wake up and smell what ever it is? Do not get me wrong here I am not questioning why I fell in love, why I got married or even what I want from the future. Long have I learned that planning all this is aiming for disaster?

This time my feelings were more, stronger, intense, more than before, so much more. If we not risk we will never know. Yet, thinking about these feelings and the approach we took towards our being together we still have these sleepless moments on the same day we find ourselves daydreaming about beautiful days and nights, passed or ahead. Why is life so complicated? Is it because as a human we want to analyze everything? An answer is something we always want to have, why we or I can’t not with a day without an answer. I do try, only to find myself wondering in the evening.

Analyze love? What the hell for? Just to find more questions? I already have enough of them, I want a way to find a quiet spot, where thoughts are on a towel in the sun getting a tan…. And leave me to surf the waves and get a tan too. Could it be that I am waiting and wondering until I finally pass the time and hurdles my previous relationships had before breaking up. Still I can not answer this. My Christmas wish would be not to think about the past as part of my or rather our future…..
April fool….. I hope that this year I can go on without feeling one. So far I am doing ok and I hope that April 1st will pass by as the next day. This year I will be home and having my days off and just want to sleep and relax. Both of us are in need of some relax time, together. The past months have asked a lot of the both of us in different ways and different times. Since 14 of March we became an item for real and from now we are facing the legal situation together at home. Prove of this is the 36 page document we made for our next step of getting him his permanent visa.

All that I am afraid of is that he will be without work for a couple of months. Again sitting at home doing nothing. Something he is definitely not good at. To me this time is easy (his words) as I have my job and having enough to do. While working I found out that thinking of all these issues can also give me a bad day at works and a bad night sleep. But no one sees it or will notice it. Least of all the person who thinks that he is foremost the only one suffering under the changes in our lives. After our first night together I found myself waking up after a 8 hour sleep (first one in 3 months) and well rested, not waking up because of my cold feet or the emptiness in my (our) bed. Far more then I ever hoped this whole thing of getting back together kept me awake and worrying. The 1st of April can come and go this is a thing that will not turn out to be a joke; I can sleep and rest again, be it here in London or home in Holland. No longer is the house empty and quiet, to quiet to even notice that silence makes a lot of noise.

Before April comes March has to end, so lets first change our clocks to summertime and after that see what jokes and pranks April has to offer us…..

Real friends are those who, when you feel you've made a fool of yourself, don't feel you've done a permanent job.

Love in the real world means saying you're sorry 10 times a day.
Kathie Lee Gifford



It is not to be expected that human nature will change in a day. So why did I think I can. Back at the office or rather back in England. My life has changed; my husband came home after all these months of waiting and preparing he landed last Wednesday.

The days after that were filled with the preparations of new paperwork and settling in, as meeting friends and family. Yesterday he took me to the airport as I had to get back to work, if only for 4 days.

Today he was supposed to stay at home but what a surprise he ended up in Amsterdam. Like I suspected, a nasty way for me too find out that I am never wrong with these things.
Yes, I hate Amsterdam and all it stands for. For me it is a place of sin and disaster, as I have seen many of gay relationships go flat on their face there.
True, you can ask yourself what the reason is. And the answer can be; many, just too many. Do I have the right to wonder? Is it a sign of not trusting? Tell me what to think and I might be the wiser. To me, this place is a magnet for al that is gay and all that can not spend their lives with only one man. Indeed I am not a fan of this so liberal city.

Next question of course; “do I trust my man?” So far, yes, I do. But he makes it more of a problem by keeping acting the Lebanese way. The old problems still exists, he thinks that part of the freedom in the relationship is to just wander off and do as he likes. Well this is stuff for a new talk once I am back home in Holland. I believe in freedom within the marriage but there are limits and we both shall have to find a way in the middle. If however we can not find this way than the solution is a simple one. But so far let’s not get too far in the future.

The thing is, at the end of the day you still have to face yourself.

After all I have been through I would like for once to have met and even married a guy who was able to change and not to cheat, or behave like the stereo typical gay man. Indeed sleep with everything that moves. Sometimes I wonder where this insecurity comes from or if I even should continue to listen to my thoughts. Past experiences just make me be alert to every little sign or detail that is out there.

"You can be on the right track and still get hit by a train!"

In a few months or hopefully a few years and when this blog still exists I might be able to write the outcome of all of this. Up till now I have only my memories of past relationships and the facts of his life and his ways before we got married to base everything on.

You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you do not trust enough.

It is about time my mind gets some rest, I am getting to old for this, is one ever really to old to stop wondering? Life gives us so much baggage along the way. Being hurt a couple of times; these are not suitcase I easily throw in the darkest corner. This is luggage I carry, sometimes I look at it and sometimes I just put it out of my way not to trip over it. Longing for the days these thoughts will not cross my mind ever more because I have the proof that all is well….. And there is something somewhere over the rainbow, Dorothy……

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.
Bertrand Russell

Another day at the office and lunch hour for most of us is over. Next to the every day work there wasn’t much to do, so I spend it with arranging the upcoming appointments at home and getting some much needed information. Now, now I am waiting till it is my time to go to the gym and work out a little, to get rid of this office tiredness. 11 days have passed each of them 12 hours long and tomorrow this time I am on my plane heading for Amsterdam and after that heading for home.

9 days off before I have to return here for a couple of night shifts. After that 4 weeks all to myself and not thinking about work or London for a change. Much needed rest, even more after the things that happened over the last 6 months. At the moment I do not even mind if it is gonna rain or not, this will change of course once I find myself in the garden trying to plant 5 new trees, while sliding and digging in the heavy clay infested soil.

Listening to my body signs there has been to much stress and sleepless nights, everything hurts. Workouts did end up paying the effort; I am still not loosing weight or feeling a lot better. This little man reached his limits. Limits I never thought I would have in cases like this, boy was I wrong! It started a few months ago and I thought I was fully prepared to do this. Never before in my life has something had an impact like this. No comparison to what ever. All seemed so easy until the first meeting with government laws I had never seen before, and specially made to de-motivate people of getting partners from outside the EU.

Today I find myself half way down the track but so tired, so I moved some appointments further down the line to gain some quiet days ahead. Looking forward to this first moment where there will be no alarm clock to wake, but a ray of sunshine. The morning where I can roll over to, the usual, empty, side of the bed, to have someone there to cuddle and for once leave the world outside and forget what time, day or even year it is.

In short I am looking for a good night sleep and for once no work. I am just very tired of this……. Actually who isn’t?

Most of this days work is done and the wait for the moment to go home has started. Going home, well home here not home home. One more day at the office and than finally back home to Holland for a couple of busy days. Well busy when it stops raining otherwise I will drown in the mud. Lately it seems that the weather is all about rain, be it in showers, persistent or frequently.

This morning I was told that the paperwork was send to my home address. It is the end of a busy period, too busy sometimes. But what now, now this is finished. The next paperwork is around the corner but it is far less stressful as the first round. There is this strange feeling of not having to check the site of what has happened daily with other people, the run to the letterbox to see if there is anything in the mail, sitting next to the phone or the fax. All this stuff leaves me with an almost empty feeling. What I noticed is that I am not the same person anymore, this work, these months they have changed me. My once so sunny mood has become a somewhat clouded one.
First I was afraid of my relationship being the cause of this, as I am starting this new and unknown part of our lives. Looking very closely to all that happened I figured out that the stress of all this government business transformed my life to this.

Friday when I will be at home it will be time to relax. From work and private issues, I need my energy for the time ahead.

"Sometimes it's important to work for that pot of gold. But other times it's essential to take time off and to make sure that your most important decision in the day simply consists of choosing which color to slide down on the rainbow."
Douglas Pagels

For me I hope my marriage is somehow the pot of gold, and I think everybody in a relationship hopes for that. Like many other couples we said our vows and I would like to believe the words we used are everything we wanted the other to know about how we approach the coming years together. From the moment I got serious about the fact of wanting to be in a relationship I never changed my thought about one thing. What ever happens, I can never promise the person I love that it will be forever. Sure I can try, or let’s be honest if I feel that way it can be forever, I just can not promise it. This thought has not changed from the moment I realized this, however hard I tried. The last few years I have sometimes felt ashamed of that, but after a good period of thinking I came to the conclusion that in a relationship truth is the driving factor. By being honest I think I can life very well with the fact.

"Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save."

Time didn’t fly when we were waiting for the papers, now they have the days just seem to fly faster as I can handle things. Bills need to be paid, letters and emails answered, people need to be called back. Normally I was able to get it all in, today I found out that sh*** I am too late to call or forgot to send, lucky me I didn’t forget to breath. A few more days and night, before I am expected at the airport, it feels like I am running out of time to get all the things done before he arrives.

I am rushing again just to be able to relax, what if I relax now? Well the bed will not be made, the rooms will not be clean and the groceries will find them selves on the same shelf waiting for me to pick them up for a one way ride. Better to get some rest while I am at work so I have the energy when I am off the coming week. Looking around me there is not much happening in the office, but I have to rush even to drink my coffee, because the air-conditioning is cooling it faster than I would like. This also means that my coffee break isn’t relaxed anymore, so what still is?

I do need time to think about that one!

The past is history;
The future is a mystery;
This moment is a gift;
That is why this moment is called the present;
Enjoy it!

After my first night of deep sleep I got out of bed with a happy feeling. Finally the one I love is coming home, and even sooner than expected. My or rather our future is about to start, soon, fast and probably different from what I once thought it would be.

The best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time

The first big hurdle is taken and just a few more are on the way ahead. Sometimes I wonder what I will do with all the time left over because I do not have to worry anymore about what next. For the moment that still seems to be far away as there are still procedures to be followed. After so many forms, photo copies and even more paperwork there is still another mountain ahead.
Wondering why, sometimes, do we have to send the same forms again and again, even more so because all this is al ready on file? But the governments want it so there we go.

You would think that I can only think of him coming home, but there is more to it, not only is he coming home but he is also going to be more a part of my life then he has ever been before. All these time he has been around me before we were still in possession of a return ticket, a day he would be back to the airport and leave home, me and everything around us. This time there is no return ticket. He is staying; that fact alone is one of the weirdest ever. Why does this feel so strange? Being together after all this time after all we have been through, that is all we wanted.

Realizing that from next week everything will be about us, like it should as in every relationship. Wherever I go or look there will be the signs of being an “us”. This frightens me, after all the time I had to take care of just me. No, I have not been single all my life but it never was, even close, like this. My home will be turned into our home, from being a shelter to me against the world outside it now has to protect the both of us. Weirder as he is an outgoing type and me, well I rather stay at home sometimes.

There we are two men, one a European and one a Middle Eastern guy, 10 years between us, me being the older one. Can two people be more different? Of course, but to me this is already something that will require a lot of love and understanding in the future. The love is there; otherwise we would have never come this far, it is the understanding that troubles me a little. He is used in having everything his way, and to be honest so am I, but from a different point. From what I have noticed over the last year he is more of a “what is yours is mine principle”; while I am more about what mine is mine. (Up to a reasonable level) because of shorts visit only we have never had an issue about these things but they are around the corner now because we will have to learn to life together. Good part is that we are both aware of it, but now we have to solve this issue and I think he is more used to see all what is mine to be a pat of him as I am the other way around. I had plenty of time to see him act in this way and know from his past that he is doing this as part of his nature.

So what is ahead? What will be the way ahead? Answer: I really don’t know. Trying lately to figure it out, but not really knowing where to start. His idea to have a nice long walk on the beach and talk about his feelings and his ideas about the way ahead doesn’t seem to be a bad idea.
Raised in a military climate I am thinking of a strategy to use and present. In fact I almost planned it as a military action. God, am I glad I had this training, don’t think so…….
Lets see what he has to offer and than think of the way ahead, because in the end I want to make it together. To many times have things not worked out and some of them because I had my own will to plan the future making more problems than giving me solutions.

For now, I just want to be happy, and that sounds like a wonderful thing to go with. Within my wanted feeling of happiness my future is still a factor of how I see today as I know that what ever I do or we will do it will shape the days ahead.

My will shall shape the future. Whether I fail or succeed shall be no man's doing but my own. I am the force; I can clear any obstacle before me or I can be lost in the maze. My choice; my responsibility; win or lose, only I hold the key to my destiny.

Ask me again before I die if I succeeded, I might give you an answer.