No news is good news

Or in this case, no news is pretty much no news. It has been some time since I have been able to post. Mostly that is due to the fact that there really hasn't been much to say. It is also due to how busy I have been recently. I knew that in January I would be finishing up the 3000 required hours of experience that must be completed prior to commencing the testing process for the California MFT license. So the last few weeks have passed with me stressing out about getting all the paperwork together to prove that I completed my hours and mail the application to the licensing board, which was finally accomplished last Thursday. That is good news. That is the only good news.
Richard was supposedly moving back to SoCal this week, but of course that has changed. He will be returning back to Kansas after his employer's annual meeting/party this weekend. Which means I have one less night with him this weekend. The sad part is, I don't even feel all that disappointed. I am used to being let down when it his employer has any influence. And they seem to have a lot of influence.
The other bad news is that instead of spending Saturday night in his new living space, we will be spending it with my parents in San Diego. Yes that is correct, Valentine's night spent in a twin bed in my parents home. So I'm pretty much set up for the worst Valentine's night in history. Which at least means they can only get better from this point on!
Our visit over Superbowl weekend was unremarkable. Besides the Pittsburgh Steelers becoming the first team to ever win six championships. That was pretty remarkable. And Richard, who despises all things sports, watched the whole game with me! And he even cheered a few times, which I greatly appreciated. That too was remarkable I suppose.
I hope that I don't sound too dismal. It is just that life in the LDR is a bit dismal at the minute. Richard is worried about job security, as many folks are in this economy. I am worried about passing my licensing exam, so I am trying to spend the majority of my free times studying. Which I am finding more and more difficult to do. Turns out my attention span isn't what is was when I was a graduate student five years ago, and it wasn't much to speak of back then. So we don't have much to talk about when we do talk. Although I must reiterate how fun Skype can be. It is great hearing his voice AND getting to see his face!
I just think that I have come to an impasse of sorts. I'm getting to the point where it is safer to not be excited about things because I save myself from the heart-wrenching disappointment. Maybe the stress of my application and exam has replaced the stress of my LDR. For example, we are seeing each other this weekend, but we have no plans to see each other after that. In the past, I would be crawling with anxiety wanting to get a flight booked so that we can see each other as soon as possible, for a reasonable fare. After all, there is much more than just the emotional cost of an LDR (maybe that can be my next attempt at a statistics post). But at this point, I just feel a bit numb to the whole thing. Maybe one of these days I will have some good news to report. Until then, I'm hitting the books and hopefully having a good time this coming weekend.

Some statistics

I am no mathematician. Anyone that knows me well knows this to be true. I cannot figure out how much to tip a cab driver, and I can barely keep my checking account from getting withdrawn. But I decided to attempt the daunting task of figuring out exactly how many times I actually saw Richard in 2008. Sounds boring? It probably is, but they say you can't argue with numbers, so here goes.

Out of 366 days in 2008, I saw Richard 84 days. That may sound like a lot, but when you break it down into a percentage, that is 23% (.229 to be exact). That isn't even a quarter! When you break it down into weekends, we spent 21 weekends together, 37% of all possible weekends. These are numbers that I am not happy about.

In discussing LDRs with my friends at work earlier this week, I came to the depressing conclusion that I have no perks in my life. I live a life that is similar to that of a single person. I can go out when I want, come home when I want. No one leaves the kitchen cabinets open, or the toilet seat up or smelly socks all over the place. But I don't have any of the perks of being single. I don't get to flirt, I don't get drinks bought for me, and I don't meet new and interesting people in the dating scene. And I go to bed alone 282 nights per year.

And on the flip side, I don't have the perks of being in a relationship. I don't have a date to my holiday party tonight. I don't have someone to hug when I need to, to have everyday romance with. I don't get to say good morning or good night to the person I love. I have someone I talk to almost everyday, but that I only get to touch 84 times in a year.

So my conclusion is that LDRs are a form of self-hate. True masochistic (see second definition) torture. I suppose the payoff is in the end, but with no end in sight, it is hard to not get demoralized.

Welcome to the 21st Century!

We got web cams! So I guess I will give a little background before I gush about our leap into the technology of 2000.
When Richard and I were first apart way back in 2002-2004 I'm fairly sure web cams were available. But Richard didn't have his own computer, so he did all his emailing from school or a roommate's computer. I had good old fashioned dial-up Net Zero. Am I taking you all back or what? No Ethernet, no broadband, no DSL, no cable Internet. This was the Internet of old where you could actually hear your modem dialing up. It took three minutes just to open an email. And you could only save about 100 messages in your hotmail account. Forget about downloading music, watching movies, or emailing pictures. Besides, neither of us had a digital camera anyway. So web cams and video chats were way out of our starving student tech reach.
Flash forward to 2005-2006. Richard and I are living together, but he is now separated from his family and friends. I hear about this service called Skype and I tell Richard about it and suggest we get a web cam that he can use to talk to his family for free! Well, he doesn't heed my advice and we continue to live in the 21st Century Stone Age.
Fast forward to January 2009. Richard hears from an old friend living in Malaysia who is all about the Skype. So Richard gets a web cam, and has a blast talking not only to his friend, but his parents too! I'm in, so last night I went to Radio Shack and got myself a little $30 web cam, microphone built-in. Before 8pm last night, Richard and I were video chatting away on Skype. You can also do free video chatting on Gmail, which I am also all about. So basically, I just want to say that this is great, and I'm really annoyed that it took us over a year to take this step. Obviously, it is nowhere near as good as seeing him in person and being able to touch him, but being able to see him laugh and smile is a huge improvement. Plus, we will be able to better read each other's non-verbal communication. So every time I say, "I'm fine" when I'm really pissed off, he will be able to tell that I'm really not fine! Also, being able to see each other reinforces the connection. Typically during our evening chats, we would talk for about 15 to 30 minutes max. Normally the conversations would go something like this: hi, how are you, fine, how was your day, fine, what are you doing, nothing, going to bed, talk to you tomorrow good night. Last night we talked for over an hour! And it was really hard to hang-up! I'm sure as with all things the novelty will wear off, but I'm stoked and I implore everyone to get with the times! What DID we do before free video chat?

Back to life

Hello out there and Happy New Year! It has been a long week readjusting back to real life. Richard and I were away for the Christmas holidays. We had a really splendid time. I could gush about it, but I'm trying to focus on getting used to the idea that we are apart again. This past week was the first week back to work, and back to being apart. It wasn't too bad of a transition after spending two solid weeks together. But it wasn't a good one, if there is such a thing.
I don't know really how to express this, but I find myself obsessing a lot. Always checking my phone and refreshing my email. I think part of it is that I know he isn't available for texting or emailing during the day, which results in me wanting it more. Which I guess is a fairly normal response. Tell me I can't have something and I want it that much more. It starts to seem like if I don't get that thing, I may not survive. But the truth is, I do survive. Our relationship survives without flooding each other's respective in boxes. Little expressions of what is our repetitive daily condition. Why do I crave it so much? There really isn't a need for status updates. I love him. I miss him. He loves and misses me. It isn't like the more I say it, or the more I hear it or read it, the less I miss him or the more I love him. The feelings remain the same.
Somehow though, the fact remains that I do want to hear from him more often. Not seeing him everyday really leaves a void. I want to try to fill it by hearing from him more than just our goodnight chat. I want to hear from him throughout the day. I want to know he is thinking about me as much as I am thinking about him. Would I want the contact as much as I do if it became routine? I can't answer that. I know I do notice it when I do receive a text or an email from him every once in a while during the work day. Whenever I complain about this to Richard, his response is, "what did we do before text?" The funny part is that before text we emailed every day and wrote letters. Doesn't really help his argument. At any rate, I think I am accepting that our relationship is what it is. I'm going to work on checking my phone less. I am also going to work on taking care of myself this year. My New Year's Resolutions are to: get into therapy as soon as possible, study and pass both of my licensing exams before the end of the year, and take better care of my health.
As far as our relationship goes, I don't know what the future will hold. Richard is back in Kansas until at earliest middle of February. He does not know when he will be back, or where he will be back to. He has no home in Southern California now. All of his belongings were moved to storage. So whatever the transition will be, it will not be an easy one for either of us. I just received an email from him that his employer is looking for some volunteer's to move to Guam. Guam!?! Yes, Guam. Looks like 2009 may have more upheaval than 2008. The good news is, whatever it is, we will get through it together.

Happy Holidays!

I was planning on posting something extremely interesting and profound, but my pre-vacation to do list kept growing and growing, and now I am out of time. Well, I'm not out of time actually, but I am feeling very stressed out, sensitive, irritated and over-reactive. So now is not the time for me to explore the new dynamics of my relationship.
That being said, Richard and I are taking off tomorrow for England. I wish everyone a dry, warm, snuggly, happy holiday season, and I will be sure to post all about the trip in January.

My LDR with my family

As I have mentioned before, I think long-distance relationships come in many packages. You mostly only hear about intimate relationships being long-distance, probably because they are the most traumatic and the most difficult to maintain. But MANY, many of us are separated from our friends and family. Almost every single person I know is far, far away from someone they love deeply. In fact, I am having a hard time thinking of one person I know that is not far away from at least one person they love. And all of these people have to work at maintaining these relationships. I have to work at maintaining my long-distance relationship with Richard and with many of my friends, but I have to work very hard at maintaining my long-distance relationship with my family.
As many of you know, I was born and raised in San Diego. Many of my friends still live in San Diego. I moved from San Diego in 1998 and I haven't lived there again since. I love San Diego. It is a beautiful city, with perfect weather for my liking. I miss being near my friends in Southern California, but I just don't know if I could happily live there again because I think I would have a hard time living in the same city as my family. Plus I am loving my life in Northern California, so for now I remain long-distance from my parents. And this is an issue that causes quite a bit of contention for them.
The problem about this is multi-faceted. One big problem is that my parents are not technology savvy. My father doesn't have a cell phone, so I have no way of contacting him without my mother being there, undoubtedly listening on the other phone, or her face pressed up against his so she hears what I say. He does not know how to work the computer, and she won't teach him. So I have no relationship with my father independent of my mother. She on the other hand is pretty tech savvy. However, we have had some issues with our email communication, and she abused texting, so I had to set a boundary with that one. So our main line of communication is the phone. This has worked out well for the most part. When I first moved away, I was mandated to daily phone calls. Over the last decade this has been reduced to weekly, which works out just fine for me.
The bigger problem in maintaining our long-distance relationship is the issue of visiting. This is complicated by the mental health issues in my family. My mother suffers from acute anxiety, with agoraphobia, which is a fear of leaving the house. This has progressed to the point that she will no longer leave the house alone, and has extreme anxiety leaving the house at all. I pushed and pushed them to come and visit me in 2006. Because of my mother's anxiety about the dog and the house, they chose to come separately. This did not result in a good experience for either of my parents considering they have not gone a night apart in well over 15 years. So they have made it clear that will not happen again. So, they have not come to see me since, and have no plans to do so. This means the responsibility and cost of visits is mine. It can be a heavy emotional burden. It can be a heavier burden when my intimate relationship is now also a long-distance relationship.
In the year since Rich and I have been apart, my parents have not seen much of either of us. And they decided to point that out a number of times in the week leading up to this weekend. They are especially upset about our upcoming trip to visit his family, which makes me so angry I can't even go into it here. The other problem is how different I am from them. My parents are conservative, Christian, Republicans. We differ about issues so much, we cannot even discuss them without anger. My mother informed me this weekend that I am so incorrect in my views, that she cannot even respect my point of view, but will continue to pray for me in earnest. The message I received: I bring shame to my family. Luckily, I am independent enough to not be ashamed of who I am, what I think or how I feel.
So to make a long, frustrating story shorter, dealing with my family is tough stuff. And I have no advice to anyone on how to survive long-distance relationships with family. And this is why my visits to San Diego are short and infrequent. I do not like to endure more than a weekend visit two to three times a year when I may be judged for simply being who they raised me to be. Or made to feel guilty for making my career a priority in this crucial time in my life. Or God forbid, wanting to spend Christmas with my partner and his family, who I have not seen in almost 18 months. And the last time we saw them, is when they travelled almost 10,000 miles round trip to come and visit us. Which unfortunately means I see my San Diego friends less, but I am also lucky enough that they come and see me too! Moral of the story: lots of relationships to maintain and survive, some much more effort than others. I hope all of your long-distance relationships are going smoothly, especially if you just realized that you have some!

It only took me how many months?

But I finally figured out the subscription thingy! So subscribe now! I really want to write a new post, but I want you all to subscribe first, and I have an SSI report I need to finish like NOW, so I am going to get back to that and stop procrastinating, and then I will write a new entry about the worst long-distance relationship I have EVER had to endure: my parents.