I'm leaving for Tokyo tomorrow to pick Janice up from the airport. It will be 139 days tomorrow, since we’ve seen each other in person.
I met her 6 years ago in February on a blind date, set up by Natasha. I remember picking her up at her dad’s house in my 1990 Ford Escort, with the smashed in driver’s side door that didn’t lock, the kicked in front quarter panel, the plywood window in the rear passenger side, and duct tape racing stripes. I wore jeans and a brown T-shirt with the words “thriller” printed across it and my hair was slicked back with too much gel in it. I remember her in the doorway wearing jeans and hair that is longer than it is now. She also wore a necklace with a silver flower on it and her Hawaiian Ginger body spray that she never left home without. After driving to a couple of restaurants to find them closed, we ended up in the lounge section of Earl’s at Kingsway and Boundary rd. Apparently I told her that night that I wanted to be a rock star. She was 23 at the time; I was 21.
3 months after we met, I left Vancouver with my buddy Sean, for a cross-country road trip that lasted over three months. By the time I got back on the day of my 22nd birthday, Janice and I had been apart for 99 days – longer than we had been together.
A little more than 5 years later, I left her again – this time for a whole year. It hasn’t been easy being apart after seeing each other almost everyday. The time difference between Iwaki and Vancouver was 16 hours before daylight savings; now it’s 17 hours – the extra hour made it difficult for us to speak during the week because Janice doesn’t get home from work on time. It’s usually only on the weekends that we get to talk.
Tomorrow’s been a long time coming and I’ve spent most of tonight cleaning the place up in hopes that she likes her new second home.
Yay!
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