My Crazy/Cool Life

So I’m back in New Zealand.

“What!” you say. “Wasn’t your last post about how your emergent self was getting on a plane out?”

Yes. And it did. And two weeks later, I found out I’d been accepted to the Department of Anthropology & Archaeology at the University of Otago in Dunedin, to pursue my PhD in the field of anthropology of religion. In fact, not only was I accepted but I was awarded the Doctoral Scholarship, one of the highest scholarships Otago gives, $25,000NZD ($20K USD) to pay my living expenses every year for three years while I research. It was a dream come true and the long five months of waiting for an answer from the University (not to mention the Universe) was over.

In fact, the very day I posted my last writings (February 18, 2012), I was sitting in the Auckland airport, waiting to fly home. And I did. I spent a total of eight weeks in my hometown of Flint, Michigan, and four whole months in Paducah, Kentucky, where I enjoyed time with family and made some wonderful new friends. It was during the collective two months I spent with my family and friends in Flint, however, that I fell in love.

They say that friends make the best lovers and I think “they” are right. I had been good friends with BT for more than seven years. I’d always been aware of what a special man he was and what a catch! But I had lots of living I needed to do. There was a Masters degree to obtain at Purdue University; a job and adventure in Shanghai, China; a call and spiritual cleansing awaiting me in New Zealand and…BT, while living his life, teaching and empowering young people, waited patiently for me to see that what I was searching for was right there in front of me all along.

Now both of us are immersed in this long-distance relationship and crazily happy in it. At some point, reality is going to rear its ugly head and remind us that being in completely different Hemispheres, well, no one should be so happy and what the heck were we thinking anyway(!)… but reality hasn’t bitten yet. Or maybe it has and Love has removed its sting. All I know is that I’ve been gone to Dunedin for the last 2 1/2 weeks while he’s been traveling the USA, and our communication has only deepened. I don’t worry or wonder how long this is bound to last. I only know that it will.

In the meantime, I can’t wait to see how my Dunedin life and this relationship will grow me. I’m getting my PhD in a foreign country and my loved ones, including my life partner and I are separated by an ocean, an equator, and a continent or two. Exchanging new declarations of love with BT at the same time we both received confirmation to begin our PhDs at two renowned Universities a world apart might seem like irony to some – or stupidity to others- but I prefer to call it Wisdom’s timing. This is what it feels like to be walking a path that is predestined.

I’m now back in my adopted country while I have a new Love in that of my birth. As Alanis Morissette once said, isn’t it ironic? I just happen to be one who believes that life’s little ironies are sometimes miracles that happen when we’re not looking for them. Simply put, when I thanked God, She smiled.

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