In my mind there is really no perk to being far away from each other and nothing to really make it better. I think that perhaps it may have been easier on us if our relationship had been this way from the start. At least then it would be our normal. But it isn't.
A and I met in the dorms of our University our freshman year of college (Fun Fact: My parents met each other in the same dorms, just on a different hall). We both lived on the Honors Hall and started out as friends.
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| The concert that lead to us getting together |
For anyone who has not had the fortune to experience dorm living, let me explain a few things.
1. Here is how it works: A bunch of strangers of roughly the same age are taken and forced to co-habitate with each other for a year. You find people you love, and those you don't.
2. Because you are all forced to live with each other, relationships are ridiculously accelerated. It shouldn't be that surprising really, you see each other every day, every night, in the bathroom, and in our case for honors we were taking classes together. In this type of environment you find out who people are pretty quickly. So, strangers can become best friends, total enemies, lovers, etc in about 2.5 seconds. One can also go through the stages in about 5 seconds.
3. I was a little bit different. Because I was so involved with the dance team, I spent the first couple of weeks (most of the first quarter actually) away from my hall. By the time I started making friends with people the rest of the hall had already sort of established its groups and whatnot and I slowly broke into some of them.
When I met A, he still had his high school girlfriend, but we became friends. Really good friends. It was in our second quarter when we got together. A few months into our relationship he reasoned that he had already probably spent more "actual" time with me than with his longest relationship. Because in a dorm you literally eat, sleep, and live with your hall mates. In other words... We were living together before we were even together.
Our second and third year at school all of my hall friends moved into the same apartment complex so that we were all still effectively living together. The girls and boys apartments even shared respective patios.
Summers sucked but we made a lot of effort to see each other... Going to Disneyland (the halfway mark) or going on vacations. But it was always okay because it was only 2.5 months and we would just go back to school.
Now because we are both working full time and A's schedule is so inconsistent we maybe see each other once a week.
After living together for three years we are now two hours away from each other with completely conflicting work schedules. My dad says to be thankful that we have modern technology like Skype and cell phones and Facetime... And I am.
But it is 6 months into this arrangement and I don't know how much longer I can handle it. Our plan is to get married but we want to be financially stable and we both need jobs in the same area and... and... and....
It just kind of seems like it isn't ever going to end.
P.S.
If anyone has any suggestions on how they cope with long distance... I'd love to hear them :]
