Raul dice: Let's just keep this going. Whatever it is.

Raul has a space on MSN now. You can see all of the pictures from my time Costa Rica on it. And if you know a little Spanish, you can read about his life, too. He's in the process of making some important decisions about his career and his future. Recently, I read some of Raul and I's older msn conversations, so I figure now is a good time to share a little bit about our relationship .

I met him on February 25th. I won't say that it was love at first sight, because that's a fuzzy, non-scientific concept, and I'm obsessed with rationality. But it's a fact that I totally lost my mind the moment I saw him and haven't recovered it since...

I knew him only a weekend in New Orleans, and I knew he was returning to Costa Rica. I felt insane for feeling the feelings I was feeling. But he was feeling them too, and it felt right. The picture above was taken on 2/28 at the airport, only a couple of days after we met, the morning he left New Orleans. I don't think we've gone two days without talking since.

Yes, I am in a long distance relationship-- and that's an understatement. Really, it's an International Affair. When it comes up in conversation, people often tell me that I'm crazy. And as I mentioned before, that's completely true. I am totally out of my mind. But at some point in the initial month after we met, I realized that I don't really have a choice. I tried to doubt, tried to question the logic of it, but I couldn't. Raul reassured me that he believed it was "worth it"-- on March 13th he said "let's just keep this going. whatever it is."

What we felt for each other, after spending only one weekend together and even 1500 miles apart, was so strong that I planned a two-week trip to Costa Rica for June. And those were the best two weeks of my life. I've had great moments before, but never so many in such a short time. Being together during his day-to-day life, we realized how extremely compatible we are. And I think it's amazing, because not only do we have some typical differences like those found in any couple (e.g., our parents are totally different, he loved calculus and I'm a reading nerd), but also we have different native languages, are from different countries, and were raised in different cultures. But we had suspected all this and thought about it much earlier, as this conversation from March 28th shows...

jlo says: I feel like I really, really understand you, even though I haven't known you for very long
Raul says: I think you do
jlo says: the way you think, although it's a little different from my way, makes so much sense
jlo says: and we seem to arrive at the same conclusions
jlo says: even though we've taken different paths
Raul says: We're both from the same planet
Raul says: I think that's it

And that's still the best explanation I can come up with. In short, I feel like it's a miracle that we met. In Raul, I've found a man who's intelligent, open-minded, honest, caring, confident, strong, ambitious, and dedicated to improvement (not to mention HOT). He's just finished his bachelor's in music performance at the University of Costa Rica, and right now he doesn't know where he'll be next month or next year. We plan to see each other again for Thanksgiving, and that seems like a quite while from now. But to answer all of my critics, that's not important to me. Right now what's important to me is growing and becoming the best person I can be. Raul helps me with that, and encourages me. And he makes me smile. So it's worth it to me. And I want to keep it going. Whatever it is.