We finally decided to take our chance
In late 2024, after putting up with years of emotional abuse, I left my ex. With New Year suddenly free of obligations, I decided to fit in some travel.
On my last day of travel, I met a girl in the hostel common room. We had this intense instant chemistry, like never before in my life.
I happened to be finishing up my studies in her country, so after splitting up we briefly met a few more times, and kept finding more and more things in common. We both work/study in medicine; are childhood immigrants; love travel, languages, high adrenaline sports, and creative hobbies; have similar senses of humour; borderline self-destructive overachiever tendencies; are aiming for similar long-term life goals over compatible timelines; etc, etc, etc.
But life being life, I was soon to graduate and move back to Oz. We also got stung by the unwelcome surprise of a early 30s vs early 20s age gap. Repeated scarring by exes and family have left me very... risk-averse... so boundaries were laid out.
We agreed on being long-distance friends. We moved on and each dated a bit locally, but nothing ever went anywhere. Meanwhile we continued to phone about once a week.
After almost a year of this, I felt like celebrating my graduation anniversary with a trip back to Europe, and offered to pass through her town. She had a few days before leaving to visit family in her birth country, so we synced up.
I was expecting some friendly catch-up and local sightseeing before heading back on our separate ways again. But the year-old spark blazed back to life, and the past few days turned into a perfect whirlwind.
Runaway arms races of thoughtful surprises and favours; going into heavy sleep debt to squeeze the most out of every possible hour; finding joy during train delays or while brushing teeth. On the last evening she set up a dinner with her absolute gems of parents, and expertly translated back and forth for over an hour as two research doctors from different fields nerded out in different languages back and forth across the table.
The tension when parting last night was too thick to ignore, so we dusted off and clearly aired out our red flags: the gap of 12 years and 14000km, the future uncertainties, and the overall terrible odds. But unlike a year ago, this time we decided it's better to have tried than to wonder later.
Somehow, for once I feel at ease. We may work out, or we may not. But we've promised to do the absolute best we can, and I trust those promises.
She's intelligent, creative, and ambitious; as well as energetic, playful, and sexy; supportive, trustworthy, and thoughtful down to the bone. A clear yet tactful communicator, easy to work with without being a doormat, and deadly serious when the situation calls for it. She fights tooth and nail for what she cares about, and for reasons which may never be known to mankind, she's decided to include me on that list.
I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity and just wanted to put it into writing.
TL;DR: Uh... I guess stay in hostels when you travel. Never know who you're gonna meet.