There are a thousand tiny stages you go through when you’re about to see the person you love. Some of them are awful - that sense of yearning you get that’s so sharp it actually cuts - and some are downright filthy. A lot of it’s just boring. But now, three days before I get to throw my arms around my fiancé, there’s this funny sense of elation. It comes from the knowledge that the hard parts of the next couple of days are rooted in early mornings and slight social awkwardness at family events, rather than hard physical work and too much empty time; but also the sense of absurdity that it has been nearly sixteen months and when you stretch that out on a scale and look at where I am now, it’s honestly just hilarious.

This will suck again. I will get sweaty palms in the airport, standing in a Border Control queue while she gets equally nervous a few hundred yards away. I will find that all of my Important Work that I set myself to do on the flight over will be disrupted by looking out of the window aimlessly and obsessing over the tiny details, the sound of her laugh, and the furrowed look of concentration whenever she’s buried in a game or book, and the feeling of her body pressed against mine, and I know that I’ll feel dizzy with excitement and anxiety and a dozen contradictory feelings. But, hours later, I’ll run towards her, and I’ll be home.