I've been here with my SO for awhile now, and so far things are going well. I can't believe we had been apart for a year! Definitely way too long.

The trip over here was actually quite hard for me. On my flight from LAX to Sydney, I had a really bad anxiety attack about on hour into the trip. I talked to the flight attendants and let them know I was having anxiety. They were very helpful and took time to talk to me and help me distract myself. Other passengers came up to me and gave me suggestions on how to calm myself down. Basically the trip was uncomfortable for me because I couldn't sit still or even focus on a movie. Instead, I decided to sleep the whole way there.

After getting off the plane, going through customs and quarantine, and meeting up with his mum, I was very tired. It was still a 2 hour drive to his town. Again, I was very restless (and kind of anxious as well). It was hard for me to sit there for 2 hours straight. Anyway, when we got there, we walked into where he was having his party. I saw he was in the back of the room with all his friends. I said hello to his family and we just talked a bit. One of my SO's friends said something like, "Hey, that's Steff!" But I guess my SO didn't hear that.

I was just kind of standing there awkwardly when his dad decided to call him over. It was funny because his cousin stood in front of me so I wouldn't be seen. Then my SO saw me and looked absolutely shocked. He was kind of like, "Oh my goodness, I thought you were at home getting help for your anxiety!" We then hugged for about 5 minutes; we wanted to enjoy the feeling of being able to touch again.

That was a few weeks ago. He's been really good at supporting me through everything. Every now and again I'll have my anxiety attacks; sometimes they'll get really bad. The first few nights, my arms hurt really bad because I somehow pinched my nerves (I guess my backpack for the plane was too heavy) I was up every hour just crying because of how bad the pain was. My SO stayed up with me, helped me through the pain, and got me back to sleep each time I woke up.

I'm staying here for a few more months to figure out what my SO and I want to do regarding closing the distance. We're looking at all our options and will keep talking about it. We're hoping that we will have a solid plan in place by the time I need to go back home.

Here's a picture of us enjoying our first day back together:3

~S