parker’s desk

Out of the long list of things we humans can put our­selves through as far as emo­tional tur­moil and stress goes, one up near the top in my opin­ion (being what affects me) is the mixed bag that is a long dis­tance rela­tion­ship.  They quite hon­estly ter­rify the crap out of me, because in my mind it boils down to one thing — are both par­ties going to be able to com­mit to the long term.

I don’t really know if it’s a guy thing or just some­thing unique to me, but my out­look in a long-term, long dis­tance rela­tion­ship is usu­ally that it might suck not being together — but life with­out them ever would be a lot worse.  I’ve been in sev­eral long dis­tance rela­tion­ships, and I’m not really sure I can say any really made it.  I guess my sec­ond deploy­ment in the Marine Corps tech­ni­cally counted, as I was mar­ried going out and still mar­ried com­ing back…but it’s a mat­ter of dis­cus­sion whether or not that was a pretty big nail in the prover­bial cof­fin (I think we both agree it was).

I think where the ter­ri­fy­ing part of the whole thing comes is when you rec­og­nize the fact that they may just not be able to pull it off.  It sounds like poten­tial name call­ing to any­one that was on this side of a long dis­tance rela­tion­ship gone bad, but it basi­cally boils down to one side not being strong enough to make it work.  It could be for any num­ber of rea­sons that led them to that point…they feel lonely, they find some­one else attrac­tive, they don’t think it’s ever going to end. 

There are cer­tain moments in my life I can snap back to with a star­tling clar­ity (some I made myself remem­ber by choice, oth­ers not so much), and one of them is sit­ting on a pay phone in Japan, five and a half months into a seven month deploy­ment and talk­ing to my then-fiancée (an ear­lier rela­tion­ship that ended that night).  She was break­ing up with me, say­ing it was too hard or some­thing to that effect.  I remem­ber the phone booth and the dirty ground, oddly.  I argued with her, tried to rea­son with her, even tried to say she could pre­tend she was sin­gle until I came home.  In my mind, I knew that the sec­ond I came home on leave she’d want to be back together again…she’d just for­got­ten what it was like being together with one another, and as soon as she got a taste of it she’d want me back.  I knew that was the case.

Sadly, I also knew that if she had to end it there that was it.  I couldn’t trust her to deal with the dis­tance, I was only on my first deploy­ment and there’s be another 7 month bas­tard com­ing four­teen months after the first one ended.  I had no choice in the mat­ter, it was all part of the sur­prise pack­age deal you get when you enlist.  She, of course, couldn’t do it.  So it ended.  A cou­ple of months later I went home to Wis­con­sin on Christ­mas leave, and just as I’d expected when I saw her she wanted to try to make things work again.  And, like I said, I couldn’t.

I think that’s really how it hap­pens.  It’s a process.  You start for­get­ting them, in bits and pieces.  It’s been over a month since I got to hold Heather and look into her eyes, I can still feel it when I make myself con­cen­trate but it doesn’t come out just on it’s own like it did before.  Of course I’ve done this a few times, like I said, so I know what to expect.  When those phys­i­cal mem­o­ries fade, you almost end up falling back on a kind of faith.  Faith in “us,” I sup­pose.  You have faith that its going to work out, you have faith that when you com­mit­ted to the rela­tion­ship while with them you were then of sound and clear mind…unlike what hap­pens to you when months go by with­out being together.  Lit­tle doubts and fears sprout up like cracks in the wall of a dam.

Talk­ing often helps.  Video chat helps.  Send­ing lit­tle trin­kets and try­ing to be roman­tic from 2300 miles away helps.  Over time even those lose their effect though, and any inter­rup­tion to that rou­tine will have a neg­a­tive impact.  Even­tu­ally it all just comes back to that faith.  For me, the faith is — more than any­thing — that there is no one else I’d rather be with, no one else that makes me as happy.  I couldn’t pos­si­bly be with some­one else know­ing Heather exists in the world, for exam­ple.  It makes every­thing else really easy for me…but that’s just me.

This really was a pure rant of a post tonight, I’m not even sure it has a point.  Some­times it’s more just like think­ing out loud for me on here.

Share on Facebook