It’s amazing how events can change us and our attitudes about the world. All of a sudden, from not that young a woman, exhausted with life, and constant troubles, you turn into the Queen of the Ball. Your soul is no longer tormented with doubts or any sense of insecurity. It lifts you up to the heavens, together with dreams, enjoying life, laughter, and cheers. Suddenly, how beautiful life is!
The usual room of the restaurant turns into a palace with white marble columns and exquisite dishes of exotic flavors. It is filled with flowers and music. You are surrounded by the crowd of people. They look at you with admiration, and some even with jealousy. Everyone is happy for you and say only nice things to you.
Life itself seems magical, especially if the event is happening on the eve of the old style New Year according to the Julian calendar. Nowadays it falls on January 14. This holiday itself is so incredibly dreamlike, that it intensifies this impression. And why? Because there is one man, the man who is now dancing with you, and looking at you with admiration and love. (His suit was more than necessary for this occasion.) For him also everything has changed overnight. He’s received his prize. He’s been looking for it. And now, finally, he has it in his hands a woman he wanted to become his wife. He looks at her as if she is the greatest treasure of the world.
Didn’t you feel like that on your wedding day?
The next day Mike flew back to Alaska. To follow my husband I had to get a visa. For that I needed to provide a large set of documents and go through a number of procedures.
The holiday was over and my fears came back.
Oh God, what a coward I am! So, what to do now? What if he never comes back? Will I have to live with someone else’s last name? I will not even be able to get a divorce, because of it being an international marriage. And what did I need all this for? Why couldn’t I just live quietly like everyone else? But no, I decided to get married.
But these thoughts came to me less and less. I always felt the presence of my guardian angel. He seemed to be smiling at me and whispering, “Good job! You did the right thing. Everything will be fine.” It gave me strength. I continued taking my English lessons and dreaming of a better future.
My husband also didn’t give me any reason to worry. He called and wrote me letters. He was polite and kept me informed of all the issues concerning gathering the required papers. One of his calls was special.
“Hey, Polina!”
“Oh! Mike! Hi!”
“I’ve collected all the necessary documents,” Mike said into the handset, “and will send them to you by special courier. I will have to leave for a business trip for three days, so I won’t be able to write. You will have to meet the courier at the Borispol Airport in Kiev on Friday at two o’clock.”
“And is this a man or a woman?” I felt nervous.
“I don’t know,” Mike said, “so you’ll have to make a sign with your name on it in both English and Russian, so this person can easily find you in the airport.”
“Okay, I’ll do it,” I said, and my heart filled with joy. He loved me. He hurried to take me to him.
Suddenly I recollected that during the dinner in honor of our engagement, when I expressed some doubts about his love for me, Mike said, “If you look at the globe, then you will see that your city, and Anchorage, the city in which I live, are at opposite sides of the Earth. This means that, coming to you and going back home, I make a full circle around the Earth.”
“Well, generally, yes,” I said, surprised that he even found out the location of our cities on the globe. I was stunned!
“So how many women do you know, for whom a man would fly the Earth around three times?”
Thinking about it this way, I admitted to myself that I personally didn’t know any woman like that. Well, now, of course, I knew one.