I met her right before I moved back to Texas (and after I'd decided to) and I see her every chance I get. Every time she has a break from school, or every time I can come up and see her even while she's in school (though then I have the sneaking suspicion that I affect her studies), we spend as much in-person time as we possibly can. It's funny, I thought I wanted to be alone for a very long time, especially after the last relationship I had. I don't hold any blame for that other party, but it was a devastating experience and I was forlorn and exhausted and frightened when it was over.
We met the week before I moved away from her, and I knew in my gut that I was set on Texas forever - or at least for a very long time. Our first real date was my last day in California. I drove away from her, but she never left my thoughts again. She is so filled with light. There's a certain moment at dusk when the moon is out and the sky is a darkening blue that the moon looks almost translucent with the blue seeping through. When I drove away from California, I was driving away from so much loss and so many tears, but there in my line of sight was this translucent radiant waxing moon and it reminded me of her.
I didn't plan on having another long distance relationship ever ever ever. I was in a place (heartbroken) - and only looking for a little adventure when our paths crossed. But she wasn't the type of person you can just have a little adventure with and then forget. Over time we realized we were short-changing ourselves to not attempt a Relationship.
I knew on our first date that whomever found themselves lucky enough to have her love would be a profoundly lucky person. I could tell that she was a person who very much deserved to be treasured, and I hoped that whomever she ended up with would treasure her the way she should be. I knew I would deeply treasure her if I ended up being that person. She is beautiful, she is kind, she is generous, she is understanding, she is compelling, she is intelligent, she is full of fire.
A few months ago she proposed to me on the anniversary of our first meeting. I accepted gladly. She has a year left of school. I am looking forward to the time when she and I can live together and make a life together. I see her pretty often, but I know living together will be something else entirely. We are both passionate and willful, but also kind and flexible. I remind her of my flaws as much as possible because I do not want her imagining I am somebody I am not.
The distance has its advantages. It's allowed me time and energy to mourn the relationship that ended so shortly before I met her. I needed to mourn and recover - it was a profound and profoundly heartbreaking few years for me. And I needed to build a life where I have the capacity to contribute to a future - and she's in a similar place. I am still in the process of building that life.
Anyway, I know the beautiful things about LDRs and I know the amount of hope and idealization that can build inside of one. I know for myself not to let myself idealize her entirely, but also to enjoy the beauty of that first piece of time - that first flush, that newness, and to understand that I don't even know what our relationship will be like once we live in the same place day after day. I also know that even when a person shares a city with you, there is no knowing what it's like to live with them until you do.
I know most of all to enjoy this time because time never stands still. She may be far away from me right now, and she may be sleeping beside me tomorrow, but wherever she is, this is a period of time we won't be getting back. I want to have with her a forever type of love, a mutually supportive type of love, a sustaining type of love. The kind where we both accept each other for who we are and also accept our changes over the course of our lives. I want to live and let live - and love and let love. I know she cannot save me from the agony of living, but I also know she's familiar with what it looks, sounds and feels like to be intimate with said agony. And that makes me love her more. I don't know if I could really love a person who had no familiarity with pain.
I warn her I am messy, impulsive, political, obnoxious, obtuse, bombastic at times, stubborn, as well as hoarding, internet-addicted, bfp-addicted, food-addicted, sex-addicted, pleasure-addicted and generally slothful. I have my moments of confession and am impressed by how unphased she is by them. She seems to understand me more than I do myself. She is this perfect mixture between science/math-mind and empathy and intuition. She has a kind of wisdom that outstrips her years. Or my years added to hers even.
And she has this beautiful heart, and these beautiful lips, and this beautiful soul, and this beautiful body, and this beautiful darkness and this beautiful light, this beautiful youth and this beautiful age, this beautiful hope and this beautiful cynicism.
I was listening to this song the other day -
and I do feel this way about her.
One thing my last relationship taught me is that nobody is going to save me but me. I'm the only one who has the tools, even if saving me is a highly experimental project. I loved and lost big time that go-around, but when I look back I know I wanted my last relationship to save me and to heal me, and I wanted to save and heal another person who was beyond the help of any mortal person - and maybe that person wanted the same stuff from me.
I won't be burdening anybody else with the onus of saving me. There is no saving me if I don't do the job. But I know how to be faithful and I know how to love a person right, and if she lets me I will do exactly that until I keel over dead.
I think perhaps I've deviated from the topic here. LDRs suck. I'm in one, I don't like that I'm in one, but it's definitely the lucky sort, where she (thank goodness) has the funds to fly (or fly me). And so we spend a lot of real time together. There is regular satisfaction to the ache of separation and we have the fortune of long stints of time together. I think LDRs are so much harder when there is no money for travel or not enough vacation days to be had.
I spend a lot of time in the meantime. Trying to make my life a life in which we both can thrive. She will be moving down here following her graduation, Goddess willing. I want to give her the softest, lovingest landing she can have when she gets here. Hopefully in the next year, I can get into a place of prosperity enough to make her landing a light one.