It was a rough weekend. Don't get me wrong. It DID involve seeing a movie ("Rudo y Cursi"--really good!), yoga, the gym, trying out Casa Oaxaca (very yummy!) with a friend, a manicure, catching up with another friend over lunch and making two new recipes.
But it didn't involve spending time with my boyfriend, which I would have traded all those things in a second to be able to do.
For at least the next year, J and I will have to live apart due to schooling stuff. And I know, if we try hard enough, we can do it. But I'd give just about anything to have him here with me.
I miss being silly with him. I miss cooking together. I miss waking up next to him. I miss going to museums or seeing movies with him. I miss just having him around. I know that right now we are both doing things to put us in a better place in the future and that it might just be from now until next May. And I fully support his decision. But I do wish he was here to laugh with me over something stupid.
Does it ever get easier?
7 comments:
i may be in a similar situation soon too. i feel like i must put on a brave face when inside its just tough!
Long-distance is SO hard. You didn't say where your partner is and whether it's somewhere where you can still visit, or if it's so far you can only do a couple of visits in the next year. Or not at all.
Husband and I were in a commuter situation (NYC-DC) within 6 weeks of meeting - that first year we were dating, we saw each other every few weeks. I remember that there were times I got very used to it, and others where it was seriously hard :(
Then we got married, lived in the same city for 6 months, and then went back to the NYC-DC situation in January 07 - that time, we agreed to see each other every weekend, no matter the exhaustion, and we did. We saw each other 51 weekends out of 52 in 2007 (the one weekend husband was on a trip with friends and I also took a small trip although just to LI from NYC). It was TIRING to stay on this schedule, but it made missing each other better because it was only just a few days until we next saw each other.
And then we almost died of exhaustion - by 2008 we managed to be in the same city for 5 out of the first 10 months of the year. The other 5 months, though, we just couldn't stomach the incessant travel anymore -and it went back to feeling more long-distancey than commuter, ie we would see each other every couple of weeks. Honestly, while i was better rested, it was hard.
So, having given you way too much background, here are some things that helped me:
1. having a pretty set time to talk every day. we usually spoke at lunch and again in the evening before bed. very doable since we were in the same country time-zone, but having a set time
2. incessant texting/emailing
3. focusing on why you are doing this - we did it for our careers, and flash forward to midway 2009, and we are both where we wanted to be. Having that end-goal in mind really helped a lot. It also helped we hit the end-goal about 6-12 months sooner than we could realistically hope do. Some luck/serendipity definitely came into play starting midway through 2008.
4. having planned visits, so we always had a visit to look forward to.
Good luck, and feel free to email me or tweet me :)
Hey Lauren...I just wanted to drop you a note to let you know that I have a new blog, Tulips and Tea (www.lovetulipsandtea.blogspot.com). The food blog was fun, but I found myself wanting to write about more than food, and actually, your blog has inspired me in this process! I love reading your thoughts on yoga (which you actually inspired me to start doing about a year ago), health, creativity, writing, etc. I realized that I wasn't allowing myself to write about the things that really excite me, hence the new blog. Anyway, just wanted to share...hope you're doing well.
long distances ARE hard. i had to do one before. i hope to never do that again, but if it comes down to it, i would. i know you guys will come through it like champs.
The image is by Erin Petson (http://www.erinpetson.com/). I used Microsoft Publisher to add the text, and then I saved it all as one file (so that the text was actually part of the image). Then I uploaded the image to Blogspot, and clicked on the option "Use in place of title." You can also edit the HTML to remove the lines around the border of the banner. Just go to Edit HTML from your Layout page, and then scroll through the HTML till you see something that looks like "border inner" and "border outer" and just delete those phrases. Let me know if you have questions!
My boyfriend and I lived in different countries for almost three years (but when I say different countries, I'm talking Western Europe - a two hour flight). We didn't stop missing each other but we did get used to it in many ways. If you have a clear end in sight, that really helps.
Thank you for all your comments! It's really comforting to know that others have done this and lived to tell the tale!
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