How the Hell Did I End Up Here? / A Love Story

If our love story was a Lifetime movie, I believe the title would be something like "Love at First Taco". But that may confuse viewers. Is the girl in love with the boy... or the taco?

In my case, the answer would be both. 

But let me go back a bit. In this post, on this balmy Saturday afternoon in which I am still in the same clothes from the previous day, have moved maybe thirty feet in total and have not changed the channel from MSBNC's "Caught on Camera" for the last 4 hours, I thought it would be the ideal time to finally share with the world how my boyfriend and I came to fall in love and whatnot. 

Before I can get to the love story, I have to rewind to a break up.

The "break up" was with my best friend. We had survived four years of college together and I loved her like a sister. We partied together, lounged together, studied together... we did everything together. We may have been co-dependent, but in the fun, slightly less pathetic way. 

We knew after we graduated that we wanted to have one final 'hurrah' together. I wanted to travel and backpack around the world but she had strict parents who thought that she needed to do something a bit more 'productive'. We ended up compromising and deciding to spend a year in Chile teaching English and saving up enough money to travel to South America. 

We both spent the Summer saving up on money and I spent those three months frantically learning Spanish. By the time August rolled around and I was about 2 weeks before the trip, I was proud to say my Spanish was basically at Dora level. I was good. 

A week before the trip my friend called me and told me she would not be going with me. She said she had decided to stay behind for reasons I will not go into here and basically that was it. 

I was heartbroken. Devastated. I remember that day so well because I literally fell to the floor crying. I had spent four months planning and envisioning this amazing year with my best friend. I had a one way ticket leaving in 10 days, had saved up all this money and with just one phone call my fantasy shattered. 

I had to lick my wounds quickly though. In that week, I made a new plan. I would still fly to Chile, meet up with my friends who were graciously hosting me and then backpack around South America. I would go where my heart would take me. Screw the world! I wanted and needed to spend some alone time. I felt betrayed and wanted to lose myself in some tequila and preferably in the arms of some Argentinian man and/or alpaca. 

I remember clearly leaving for my plane and my mom dropping me off. I was crying hysterically and my mom told me, "It's okay, we can go home now. You don't have to go". And I knew that I had to. I didn't know why, but I today I do know. I needed to prove to myself I could do it. I was strong. And I am. I knew that even if I flew to Chile, turned right back around and caught a flight straight back, it was okay. Because I did it. 

I made it to Chile and... I was miserable. I was confused. And I finally realized that I didn't want to be there. This wasn't my dream. My dream was to spend the year with my best friend and I wasn't doing that. So I made it less than two weeks before I threw in the towel and said, "screw it, I'm going home". Except home wasn't back in Massachusetts. Or even the United States. Home for me then was Israel. 

(Are you still reading? I'm impressed...)

I had spent a lot of time in college in Israel, even taking some time off to live on a kibbutz. All of my friends, my first love, my memories... all in Israel. It is where I came of age and it was an important place to me. So I decided to move there. The day I landed in the States, I applied for my Israeli passport and submitted my paperwork to make Aliyah, which in Hebrew means "to go up" and is the process of moving to Israel. 

I faced several hiccups. Firstly I was technically already a citizen of Israel since my father is Israeli, so I had to apply under special circumstances that would make me exempt for military service. Secondly, I struggled to find documentation and proof of my Judaism which is something that made me very bitter and resentful as I know I am Jewish and found it idiotic that I needed a piece of paper to prove it... But I digress. 

The point I am trying to make is... this whole process took awhile. 

And in the mean time, I needed a place to watch my weekly FC Barcelona matches. At this time, I was super obsessed with soccer and I wanted nothing more than to have a beer, watch my game and hate the world (I was still slightly bitter... But in the more humorous way and less sad and pitiful way). In DC, I would always watch my matches at the Spanish bars since they had the Spanish channels that broadcasted the games. 

This is what ultimately led me to walk into a Mexican restaurant in a little town called Plainville.

And because this post is already the same length as a Tolstoy novel, I will leave part 2 to be published for tomorrow. (I promise to finally get to the whole 'love story' part. But the preliminary information is important- I promise!)