The thing about long distance relationships is that sometimes they're easier than the nearby kind. There's enormous space to grow yourself, to establish independent routines, to manage sharp painful missing into habitual monotomous missing. It becomes routine to ache. After awhile, it becomes so natural not to have them around that you place each other on perpetual hiatus.
The long distance relationship is all promise -- and math. "Look at what we can feel in just a few weeks together. Think about how that might be extrapolated into infinity." But time spent together is not necessarily exponential. It's easier to forget that when you're long distance, because then the times together do feel exponential.
Some time ago there was this girl who lamented the fact that I was always flying back and forth, never sure where I'd be next month. She said that made it hard to build something together. I asked, "But what would we be building?
"A future," she replied.
To me, a long distance relationship was already about the future. "When this happens...then we can...see you next...." The only thing that sustains a long distance relationship is the future. And maybe a bit of the past too. The fond memories together that get rehashed over and over again to sustain your feelings. Those can carry on for a surprisingly long time. But inevitably, that runs out. It's near impossible to nurture a relationship this way, much less evolve. At some point, you have to bite the bullet and physically reconvene.
Or just give up.
This post brought to you by a viewing of Like Crazy.
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