Adventures In Solitude

Or "Ode to the Long-Distance Couple"
 

Sudlow Jewelry via Wedzu

 
Honesty time:  I'm sick of this whole long-distance thing.  Like...pulling my hair out sick of it.

The end is in sight, which (while exciting) is making this waiting period much, much more difficult.  Kind of like senioritis, but worse.  I try not to let it get to me, but it's like trying to ignore a heavy weight that is slowly suffocating me, draining me of all life.

Whenever B and I are apart, I make a conscious effort to stay positive.  If I'm feeling down, I don't complain to others about it because it just doesn't make things any better.  We've been doing the distance thing off and on for pretty much our entire relationship, and I've kind of just come to accept it as a fact of life.  But that doesn't mean it's stopped being difficult.

The truth is, other people just don't get it.  It's really not their fault...you just can't understand the stress that comes with a long distance relationship until you've been in one.  The strain it places on your relationship, the heightened sense of jealousy and insecurity, the frustration that comes with a lack of face-to-face communication and the nagging guilt for wishing his or her life revolved more around you.  Until you've dealt with it yourself, you really can't imagine what it feels like. 

As such, people tend to make unhelpful comments.  Things like "Well you guys have been doing this for so long...you must be used to it by now."  Or "When you guys finally move in together, you won't know what to with yourselves!  You'll wind up Skyping each other from opposite sides of the apartment because you won't know how to have a normal conversation!"  Talking to others about it is frustrating, so I just...don't.  Why dwell on the things you can't change?  And in the grand scheme of things, we really don't have it that bad.  Things could be much, much worse.

B and I see each other once every few weeks, averaging about 6 weeks between each rendezvous.  We've gone much longer than that (12 weeks being the longest) and lately it's been much more frequent, due to his cluster of end-of-degree events and my insanely flexible supervisor.  I can't imagine how difficult it must be for other couples who go much longer than that, especially due to military circumstances.  Those couples get major props from me.

I think at the heart of everything, though, all long-distance relationships share a common bond.  We feel each other's pain, root for success in each others' relationships, and rejoice together when the distance finally comes to an end.  We all know what it's like to be counting down the months, weeks, days and hours until we see our loved one again, and eventually the day when we won't have to count down to anything anymore.

My day is coming soon.  To all other long-distance couples out there, here's hoping your day is too.