Together alone

Los Angeles SingaporeImagine being part of a great relationship, looking at the person next to you and realizing that you need to look no further. Then imagine that person having to move 8000 miles away for a somewhat undetermined period of time. What then? You tell yourself that it’s ok, the love will continue, that everything will be as before, but soon enough you realize the following things happen:

* There’s no measure for how much you will miss your one. You keep piling up things in your day, you work more, spend more time at the gym, start taking all sorts of classes, but at the end of the day, you come home to an empty home and no matter how much of an optimist you are, there will be days when that gets to you.

* You stop buying groceries, cooking, at times even eating. Why? Because it’s not fun cooking for one, you don’t feel inspired…after all you’ll end up eating that meal in front of your TV or laptop.

* You start missing things that weren’t necessarily on your top favorite list in the past, like his light snoring at times or picking him up at the airport all odd hours after work trips. Somehow whenever you end up at the airport and he’s not there, it seems like there’s something missing.

Singapore Flowers* You stop going to certain restaurants because they were your restaurants together so you don’t want to go there with other people. Even by chance you do, your favorite waiter comes to the table and asks about your half wondering why you’re not there together as usual.

* Your single friends won’t always think of you when they go out and your couple friends won’t really know if they should still invite you to couple outings. The single ones want to respect the fact that you’re in a relationship and the couples don’t want you to feel like a third wheel. You’re sort of single/couple when it comes to relationship status.

* You develop a different sleep pattern. Sometimes you stay up all night, work the next day and then go to the gym. Other times, you stay in the entire weekend and sleep.

* You become more aware of the friendships with the opposite sex. At the end of the day, you’re in a relationship, but you’re also “sort of by yourself” and your person is 8000 miles away, you don’t want to ever give the wrong impression. So maybe you work into the conversation that there is a special someone out there for you, just to be sure.

In the moments when you miss your one the most, here are a few things to keep you warm and fuzzy:

Antelope Canyon Heart

* Those extended trips to the gym make you more fit and toned than you’ve ever been.

* The extra classes you keep taking offer you further development and you learn so many interesting things that you get to share with the other person and everyone around you.

* You make new friends. Up until now, it didn’t really matter if you had plans for the weekend because you’d always spend time together and always find something great to do. But now, it’s all up to you. So maybe you start calling more people and socializing more.

* You keep coming up with cool things to do when you’re together from restaurants to try, places to go, experiences to have, things to see, people to meet.

* You develop a life together that’s mostly based on texts, emails, calls, and video-calls; an individual life formed by your daily activities, the new friends you make, and the new experiences you have. Somehow those lives intertwine and you get to have those three lives together and separate at the same time. You talk about people he doesn’t know and he tells you about people you don’t know, you learn about people and places way before you actually get to experience them on your own.

* When you do actually get to spend time together in person, it’s magic. You sleep in each other’s arms and breathe each other’s air as if you want to take as much of the other person in as possible. The world outside the two of you just disappears.

There’s no easy way to make it through a long distance relationship. You’re together, but somehow you’re also alone. You know you can count on the other person to pick up the phone if you need to talk, but you need some alternative solution if you need a ride to the airport or anything else that requires the physical presence of that person. You really get an idea of what you want and don’t want in your life, what details matter and what’s too small to even mention.

Is the thread that connects you strong enough to expand over 8000 miles without breaking? Are you willing to wait? Is it worth waiting? What are you willing to do to make the connection stronger, to make sure the thread doesn’t break? What is the other person willing to do? Will you be courageous, all in, give it all you’ve got without the certainty that it will all turn out ok? Will you be the success story? Will you tell your kids the amazing story of love that connects you and kept you together while being apart? Will you?

So many questions…all finding an answer inside your heart.

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