I’ve been holding on to Syria as a little girl, clinging with closed eyes to a land that gave me everything this one couldn’t. But the time for romance has ended.There are hard truths I have to learn about her, truths that will take the place of those hazy, summer memories I’ve held on to for too long and knowingly exchanged for the truth.

It’s time to meet her as a woman.

And isn’t that when romance is replaced with real and lasting love? When beauty is traded for truth, and permanence for what is real?

Here I come, Syria