Brandon

Brotha from anotha motha

It's not everyday that I blog. And it's certainly not everyday that I dedicate an entire post to one person. But this one? This one is special. This one had to come out because only once in my lifetime will someone like Brandon Lucante walk into my life and completely tear things up in the most wonderfully exquisite way.

My fellow exchange students and I have often said that that the best part of living abroad is the food. And the majority of the time, I would without hesitation nod in agreement. (Martabak manis, anyone?) Perhaps some would argue that witnessing new traditions first hand is the most stimulating part of living in a foreign land. That feeling completely at home halfway around the world is most rewarding. Or the satisfaction that follows after rewiring your brain with new language pathways. Exchange websites like to highlight the selfie phenomenon and present the multitude of photo ops as the key to living abroad. And all of these things, well, they're all integral. I have experienced all of these wonderful factors of living abroad, and about twenty pages more. I had checked all of the boxes on the proper exchange student checklist. I was complete. I was satisfied. Then I met Brandon. And only then did I realize that I was truly wrong. I had been missing something.

As I stood at the foot of the train station watching from a distance as he wiped a tear before it could fall to the escalator below him, the reality of our goodbye overtook me. My mind took off on a race, trying to grasp how absolute goodbyes can be, while simultaneously clinging to the hope of a tomorrow and forever with Brandon in it. My heart couldn't fathom it, nor could my head to write the proper words. 

So for now I guess I'll just do what we do best. Write. And pray to the author gods that this will suffice. 

"So you're from here, huh?" I beamed as a fellow American had mistaken me for a local and immediately let his remark go straight to my head. I smiled once more with his acceptance of being called Princess, and the smiles haven't stopped since. From eating dinner at tiny, vegan food kitchens, to breaking into the Opera House, or gazing at sexual art in Contemporary Art Museums, I'm grateful for every moment we together have shared. Though they be few in quantity, they are standouts in quality. Even more than the list of memorial moments we have shared in this country, I'm grateful for his laughter, and for my own. It exudes out of me in twenty second increments whenever I find myself in his presence. I'm grateful for the tears that were shed on train station benches as we talked about the big moments of our pasts, and embraced the beautiful ones that have surrounded us over the course of the last few months. I appreciate his heart. His wit. His snappy comebacks that usually top my own. His optimism and resilience. His willingness to be vulnerable while concurrently standing tall. His imagination and passion for written word. I appreciate the combustion of all qualities that make up his being, and it's my hope that I embody a few of them myself. (We often joke that I'm am the female version of him, and vice versa, so I mean, I guess I might have that going for me.)

I marvel at the strange way the universe works, constantly pulling me in directions that I don't quite understand. Events and experiences stacking upon each other, building up to the grand finale. It took crossing an ocean to find each other, but boy, I sure am glad I took that leap. Brandon makes it all so worth it. 

I'll see you on the next leg of the adventure, asshole.