A mail-order bride
“So are you one of those mail-order brides?” asked my Uber driver one night when he was driving me back home. At the time, “Home” still felt somewhat odd to me, as I’d only lived in Cleveland for about a year. I could see the fire blazing out of one of the steel plant’s many smokestacks and I could smell the vague odor of sulfur while looking at the factory buildings glistening with the raindrops. Images of my tiny yet really comfortable apartment in a relatively safe neighborhood in Poland, and of my family and friends whom I left behind to come here, swirled in my mind.
It all happened in July 2011. I worked at a summer Polish program in Lublin, Poland. Even though It was a great job but paid next to nothing, I was happy for the opportunity to meet people from all over the world. Canadians, Slovenians, Germans, Costa Ricans, and Americans – they all were “insane” enough to learn Polish. One day the students invited me to go out with them. Had I refused, I would have still been single.
While In the club and a beer in my hand, some guy approached me. His unnaturally white teeth gave him away. “I don’t know what you are, but I bet you’re an American” I said. He flashed a smile at me and said: “it’s me, Mike”. Could it be? I knew a scruffy looking Mike from the program, but here I was looking at a clean-shaven man wearing a dress shirt. As a prank, he shaved and looked very differently, thus fooling everyone into thinking he had just joined the program. We started talking and when the closing the club for the night announcement came (somewhere around 5 am as I recall) we decided to go for a walk…
The summer was coming to an end and Mike was going to return to the US. I thought this relationship would die a natural death. I was in Poland, he would go back to school. However, I didn’t realize how much in love that “crazy” American was. Mike’s perseverance and the hours spent talking on Skype and Facebook, resulted in my first visit to the US. I always laugh how he beguiled me, by almost right away taking me to the Disney World. Who wouldn’t fall for that? Several visits and revisits later, we were married. We had a big fat Polish wedding near my hometown and a pleasant reception at the PACC. I sold my apartment in Poland. We had a date with the immigration office. I got a job here. Mike grew a long, lumberjack beard and speaks Polish only to our cats. I’ve managed to make some new friends and found some places in Cleveland I call mine.
A few years ago, however, all those fires and the strange smells were a complete novelty. The distances seemed ridiculously big and I thought I’d never get used to living in Cleveland. I was only beginning to make friends. My trip was almost finished. “A mail-order bride?” I laughed, “No, I really did fall in love.”