Still in Love

I feel like I haven't gushed enough about my missionary lately. So, prepare yourself for a mush-fest!
I've been thinking about my missionary a lot lately (as usual). But I am realizing now that my thoughts are different than they used to be. Now that I can actually say "Justin will be home around this time next year", my heart tends to beat a little faster, my smile gets a little wider. I also have a different picture of Justin than I did months ago. Though I still remember what he was like a year ago, and what it was like to be with him, I have gotten to know a different Justin over the last eleven months. With our only communication being weekly letters and e-mails, our relationship has changed. We are still in love, and can't wait to be together again, but I feel that our friendship is what has grown the most over the last eleven months (and one week). Justin is absolutely my best friend. I do have other friends that are very dear to me, but no one comes close to Justin. I know a lot of girls that have boyfriends and husbands plus a best friend, but for me, it comes in one neat package: Justin Marshall.
A year ago I heard the phrase "two years is a long time, people change" a lot. Too much, actually. Most of the time, it was said kindly and in hopes of being a benefit to me, which of course I appreciated. But after nearly a year of this, I do know that people change. Justin has changed. I've changed. But I feel like we're basically the same people. We have changed together, even though we've been apart. I know that some people can't understand my determination to wait for Justin. And I think that most of that has to do with the fact that most people don't understand our relationship. In our thirty-one months of dating (plus five months of friendship prior to that), we have gone through a lot. A lot. We're used to the long-distance thing. We're used to people telling us our relationship last. We're used to people telling us to break up (thank you certain people that will remain nameless). We're used to having moments where we would forget what it was like to be with each other. We had moments where all we could do was write e-mails, text or talk on the phone for five weeks until we could see each other again. We were best friends -- well, he was my best friend-- for all of those 25 months of knowing each other before he left for California, and I don't see why that would change after only two years of not seeing each other. He's still my boyfriend. I am still his girlfriend. We're still best friends. We're still in love.
Anyway, that is how I feel. I love Justin. In my heart, I know that I am taking the best road for me at this point in my life. It's not the easiest. But, to me it makes the most sense, and I know that it will lead me to a very happy ending -- or beginning, I guess.

As Justin's "stubborn Scottish girl", I am far too stubborn to let go of a love like this.