Every Single Moment

By Tom

Invercargill, New Zealand

Back when Julia and I first realized we might be in a lifelong relationship, one of the things I was most excited about was that now I had someone to share the adventure of life with.  I felt like I was spending my twenties having all of these amazing life experiences and no one with whom I could share the experience, let alone the eventual memory.  Now that we are on a 9-month adventure around the world, we get to share every single moment together.  Literally, every single moment. 

It’s hard to know what it’s like to spend nine straight months with only one other companion and to be together every minute, day and night.  There are times in everyone’s life when you just want to be alone.  A few months after we started living together, Julia and I both observed that we felt like moodier people than we’d ever taken ourselves to be, mostly because there had never before been someone to be there and observe every high and low of our moods.  Previously when we were in a bad mood, our response had always been to get away from everyone else until it passed. 

But getting away from everyone else, or at least from each other, is not really an option when you’re traveling together like this.  Luckily, for the most part, we don’t really want to.  We’ve really gotten used to having each other around all the time and contrary to most people’s predictions, quarrels and tense moments have actually grown less frequent as the trip has progressed. 

The only time things are sometimes difficult is when Julia is becoming hormonal, such as during this past week.  This is the week that Julia usually feels like crawling in a hole and getting away from the world (and to be honest, there have been times I’ve started looking around for a hole I could suggest.)  Despite the occasional teary eyes, she’s always able to laugh at herself good-naturedly and I am too.  The list of things that have made Julia weepy during the past couple days includes:

• A small penguin that was having trouble finding firm ground to land on during high tide
• A turkey chick that died on the Sherman’s farm
• A clip we saw on a TV in a bar of a lion in the wild reuniting with its previous caretakers
• A couple in their 80’s we passed walking hand and hand to a waterfall
• An investment bank commercial that featured a boy and his sheep
• A clip from American Idol about a contestant whose fiancé suffered brain damage in an auto accident two months before their wedding (although to be fair, my eyes may have stung a bit from this one too)

But then there are moments like last night that I’m forever grateful we are able to share.  We’d just had a wonderful day, having spent the morning at a wildlife refuge watching seals and albatross colonies.  Then we’d passed the afternoon in the university town of Dunedin, running around like a couple of goofballs and taking silly photos of each other.  Julia’s quote of the day was “Take a lot of pictures of me today, Tom –my hair’s looking great!”  After driving out of town in early evening, the landscape turned pastoral and pretty.  (Yes, like the shire in Lord of the Rings; I’m required by New Zealand law to mention that movie series at least once every few blog posts.)  Julia made a couple of pb & j sandwiches on her lap and we feasted on them for dinner.  The light over the fields became absolutely beautiful and I pulled the car over to take a photo.  When I’d gotten back into the car, Julia had put on one of our favorite songs, Jolene by Ray Lamontagne, and we literally drove off into the sunset.  It was a perfect moment. 

And now I have someone to whom I can someday say “Remember that evening we were driving around in southern New Zealand at sunset and the light was so pretty and we were listening to Ray Lamontagne?”  And, withered and old like the couple walking down the path to the waterfall, the face that will be as beautiful to me as the day we met will look back at me and she will say “Yes.”

A seal basks on some sunny rocks on the Otago Peninsula

Julia's hair looking great!

Hanging out in front of the old railway station in Denedin 

Beautiful light on the fields of the Catlins, New Zealand