I had such a great reaction to my first GW story yesterday, that I thought I’d write another one.
This is another story about me and my husband, this time before we were married. It is the summer of 2011, and we are 21 years old.
After graduating from university, my boyfriend and I went travelling together for a year. For 12 months we strapped on our backpacks and went trekking. Across the Andries, through the Himalayas, through Africa’s national parks; we cover thousands of miles, on foot and outdoors, eating and very often sleeping in the wild. Having sex outdoors becomes our normal, a habit we’ve retained to this day.
When we get back to the UK, we are engaged, but have no place to live. While we look for a house, I move back in with my parents in rural Derbyshire, while my boyfriend sofa-surfs in London and starts his new job.
Living apart after so long together is an unwelcome shock. For three years of university we lived in the same house, and for 12 months after that we were barely apart for more than a few minutes, as we travelled the world. After just a few days I felt the physical separation like the loss of a part of me, and my boyfriend felt the same.