On Distance

Originally Written in January of this year:

As you all should know by now I've been in the same committed relationship since I was sixteen and a half years old. I started this blog in part to talk about what I've learned from that relationship and the relationships of my friends. Now I'm twenty.

It's hard to believe I've been with the same guy for nearly four years (3 years, 7 months, and 12 days, to be exact...), but at this moment it's easy to believe that we've been apart for nearly six months. That's right folks, for the last half year I've been among the ranks of faithful partners in LTLDRs (Long Term Long Distance Relationships). In my case, my boyfriend has decided to to go school in South America for the benefits of immersion language learning. Presumably he'll come back a semi-fluent Spanish speaker. I'm proud of him, because learning a language is something he wanted to do, and instead of just taking a few classes here and there, he packed up and went to a place where everyone spoke the language he wanted to learn.

But there's one overwhelming thing about long distance relationships that I've learned over the last six months: they SUCK.

Now:

Well they didn't lie about one thing, distance does make the heart grow fonder. My boyfriend and I were able to stick it for nearly nine months while each of us took turns gallivanting about different hemispheres. He spent the school year in South America, I spent a semester in Europe. The hardest part of being so far away fro him wasn't the distance, or the horrible internet connections that made Skyping impossible, or the time difference. It was primary the lack of full communication (IMing is not the best way to have a relationally pertinent conversation...or a deep conversation of any kind for that matter.).

The lack of physical contact was no picnic either. My boyfriend and I are both cuddlebugs, and being without that primary expression of love for nine months was brutal (especially since only a scant few of my friends are touchy enough to fill the hug void).

Still, we made it. And my confidence in our relationship has never been stronger. When you've only dated one person it is tempting to think that you'll never really know how strong your relationship is, because the habit of staying together so easy to form and extremely difficult break. Having some distance assured me that I wasn't staying with my man out of habit. I kept up a vibrant social life. I stayed busy the entire time he was gone. I had my own life, but I still wanted him in it. It wasn't just a guy who was far away from me, it was a piece of myself. I was incomplete without him in the best way possible.

I feel more alive--happier, fuller, better, when I'm with him. The distance of last school year (we were apart from September to mid-March) helped me realize that I could live--even be happy--without my boyfriend but why would I choose to?