This post has been a long time in the making. I haven’t really known what to say. I’m good at making things up but I’m not good at this.

So, here’s the thing. I fell in love. It just kind of happened, because that’s what happens. After so much darkness I did not want to be touched by love again, preferably for a long time. The prospect of entering another relationship felt like standing in front of a firing squad.

But then, there he was, being all smart and kind and funny and cute and nice and thoughtful and understanding and supportive and a radical extremist, which is always an important quality in a partner, in my opinion.

He’s a champion, there is no doubt about it.

So, what’s the problem?

We live on opposite sides of the world.

In principle this isn’t really a new thing for me, I’ve had a lot of long distance relationships. But this is my first ‘adult’ one, at least on my part. My last long distance fling was when I was 18/19. Since then, I either found people closer to home, or I was hiding trying to avoid people. So I was too immature and restless and not really aware of myself to have proper relationships in those days. My relationship history in general, both long distance and not, is grim. But I’ll spare you the grizzly details. In short, I was left with tremendous trust issues, fear of intimacy, inability to express my emotions, difficulty with connecting to people, and a general unwillingness to try and have any relationships.

And then I found myself in another relationship. I’ve been very reluctant to open myself up to someone new for a long time now, but I’m trying hard. I’m not going to lie and say it is problem free, it isn’t, I still have a lot of these issues, but he’s supportive and understanding and he’s helping me to be an actual person again and not just a broken victim. I don’t believe in destiny or soul mates but I do believe in coincidences and us finding each other was a pretty big coincidence. I’ve never had a romance with anyone who I’ve had so much in common with before, who makes me feel this safe and supported, who is more or less looking for similar things in life.

It makes sense that we would be in separate countries – connections like this are rare.

I’m in Australia, he’s in Sweden. I’m an unemployed student trying to make it as an independent writer, he’s about to become an unemployed student. So, we don’t exactly have the cash to meet up. If we are to meet then it will be a long arduous process of saving every penny for more than a year, as I’ve been doing since we got together.

I’m already on the floor so I can’t get down any lower, but we have just one plea:

PLEASE HELP US RAISE THE FUNDS WE NEED TO MEET!!

You can do this through a number of channels. The best one is to simply purchase my debut novella. It costs $6.54 and is available here. It’s good, I promise. You’ll enjoy it, and you’ll be nurturing my talents as a writer as well as helping us raise funds. At the moment we need to sell around another 125 copies to make this trip a reality. We’ve been using twitter for awhile as a promotional tool to try and sell copies of my book. A lot of people have become resentful of this, we are assuming because they don’t understand the position we are in and are writing it off as us trying to get attention. The part that people maybe don’t understand is that, we didn’t necessarily choose to have a long distance relationship. That isn’t how this started. It happened because we fell in love and we had to take the good with the bad. We knew we were facing at least a year before we could even meet. It isn’t easy, at all, but sometimes life takes unexpected turns, and if you don’t go along with them then you might miss out on what could have been the best thing that ever happened to you. It really isn’t easy to go through your day with such a big part of your life mostly absent, accessible only through a mobile phone or a computer screen. We didn’t choose this situation, but we chose each other.

It also isn’t easy to be stuck in cycles of poverty, where things that other people often take for granted like travel are basically impossible, short of a miracle.

We don’t feel like we’re entitled to people’s money, either. That isn’t what this is about. This is just a genuine plea from two very desperate people who have a chance to experience a magical dream that would otherwise be denied to both of them. We don’t like being in this position and we don’t like having to fundraise. But we like each other. A lot.

We’re hoping to have more art in various forms to sell before too much longer. We’ve been trying to make extra gifts for people who buy the book, like thank you pictures, etc etc. Some of our friends have even donated small amounts of money.

There are no words to explain how badly we want this to work and how badly we need help to make it happen. And there are no words to describe how grateful we will be to absolutely everyone who helps us reach our goal. This is the most important thing in the world to both of us.

So, please: buy a copy of my book today and help us make this impossible dream a reality.

Follow us on twitter: @obscurity_goat & @sushi_goat

I’ll be keeping everyone updated with how our progress is going so follow our tweets or subscribe to this blog!