Episode 1: The Whole Story

I'm Niomi, and first off let me say I am NOT the girl these things happen to.

A) I don't catch feelings
B) I don't care.
C) I leave people
     &
D) I don't believe in love..


Well that is .. until recently. I guess it's just that recently I met someone who changed all that, Sfiso.

www.gofundme.com/756vbs

At the tail end of my Junior year, I spontaneously decided to study abroad, and though I wanted to go to KENYA it just so happened that the travel warnings would not allow me to do so, therefore the only deadlines still available were for South Africa. Let me just say, I had really no interest in going to South Africa because of its racial dynamics BUT I really wanted to study health in sub-Saharan Africa, so boom-boom-pow! Here I am. Fast forward a couple of weeks to living in Durban, South Africa- specifically Cato Manor.

I was living the LIFE in Cato Manor, no worries, no problems that I couldn't handle. Everything was peaches and herbs and then out of NOWHERE this young man comes strolling out from under a bridge that supposedly leads to somewhere called "Chesterville" and winds up at the same get together as me. We talk.... about how old we are....

 for two hours. 

And at the end of that two hours, he still did not know that I was 21 and not 22, MIND YOU he was also 20 turning 21 in a few months (that shows you what type of get together we were at). Anyway, he made me laugh.... and laugh..... and LAUGH! He actually was weirded out by how much I laughed but hey! that didn't stop him from speaking to me again.

Well needless to say, that relationship took off. We were here then suddenly we were there! Suddenly he was a permanent fixture in my life and suddenly we were helping each other in all the little ways people who have known each other for years do.... and then ...just as suddenly as it began, it was over.

Just like that.

4 months had flown by.

And we were saying our final goodbyes.

Sfiso surprised me when he said we couldn't let our relationship end here, in this moment. He surprised me when he told me he thought what we had was real and that he would wait for me to write him, even if it took a 21 hour delay on Facebook, or 2-3 weeks by mail. He surprised me by caring about me, something no guy has ever really done.

Well, you see that's why I couldn't let him go! I wanted to but something about him was just SO different. I couldn't help wanting to speak to him even after I'd settled back in to my New York lifestyle. No retail therapy could take my mind off of what just went missing. I never really thought that I would be the kind of girl who was sympathetic to parting ways but... I just couldn't do it this time... and I still can't.

That's why I've started this blog. To give hope to all the long distance lovers who are constantly berated with the impossibility of their relationship. As embarrassing as this is, I'm laying it all on the table to figure out who was actually right. Is love real? Can it surpass all odds? Or are we destined for doom?

Let me know what you think! And if you'd like to know the juicy details I skipped over of ME & SFISO in South Africa, comment and let me know! Expect a new post every week because something crazy is always happening in this long distance love affair.