One

Well, Ben's back in Canada. He left on Thursday morning in a pile of tears at Changi Airport and so ended the six months of awesome times we had living here in Singapore again and begins Chapter 1,000 of Long Distance Relationship: Bea and Ben Edition.

I knew it was coming from the day he got here, but man did it suck. I've tried doing the grateful for him being here, positivity, sunshine and flowers thing, but sometimes you have to be authentic and say, this sucks some ass.

Since my first boyfriend when I was 16, I've shown myself to be one of those all or nothing types. Even when I try to be all independent and aloof, it only works for a little while. When I love someone, I really, really love them and it's true with Ben. It's really really hard for me to be away from him and also just to face being alone again. Without Iain here, I feel like I'm just about on my own here in Singapore.

Of course, that's the maudlin, teenaged kind of response and when I look at the reality, I have some really lovely people here in Singapore who care about me. Kyla and Matt have been awesome about keeping me busy and my roomates have invited me for Dim Sum breakfast today. I always feel all emo and alone right before people come along that I wouldn't expect and offer me some support and kindness.

So I'm going to try my best to just pick myself up and try not to be too upset about it. I'll be home in 6 months and the reality is that this long distance thing is probably going to be our reality for a while. The job market for teachers in Ontario isn't looking any brighter from what I've been hearing and I'm going to continue to look for job in England and at International Schools, so the reality is that this might continue for a while.

I just have to know that I'm a really lucky person because I have someone awesome that loves me, who was willing to come to Asia for 6 months to be with me and who is a rockstar at speaking Mandarin (and will get into fights with jerks in Mandarin on my behalf) and who is going to be a University student in the Fall, and that I am just really damn proud of. Oh, he also goes on upsidedown roller coasters, so he's kind of a big deal. Just so you know.