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Monday, January 15, 2007

My Long Distance Love

"The feeling of being wrenched from each other every time our trips come to an end."

I posted that in a comment after my last trip. While it is easy, so easy, to speak of the wonderment of being in love and being with the man I love, what I haven't spoken of is the pain of each parting.

I would trade the nights in lovely hotels, the trips to exciting places, the serotonin rush of seeing the man I love each time for the first time again, for the routine of living close enough to go grocery shopping or to a movie or to just hang out together. I envy, so totally envy, the routine that so many people have together. The routine that they often wish wasn't quite so routine.

When we see each other at the airport, we rush to be together and you couldn't pry us apart with any amount of force. We slam together in an embrace that takes our breath away and it lasts as long as we can stand there, before realising that the sooner we get out of the airport, the sooner we can get to the hotel.

Every second we're together is amazing, just amazing. We drink latte together and we find a way to make it about loving each other. We sit in the car driving around and we're loving each other. We sit in a restaurant booth eating (carefully positioned on the same bench as he's left-handed and I'm right-handed) and we're loving each other. We do everything while we love each other, and we love each other while we do everything.

But the parting. The damn parting leaves me feeling raw every time. I can't even begin to describe what it's like as the minutes tick towards whichever of our flights is the first to leave. If there was a sound associated with us having to release each other, it would be like the millions of hooks on industrial-strength velcro being ripped from the anchoring loops.

The ache that starts in my chest and overwhelms me as our arms are forced to let go of each other. The emotional pain that turns physical as I watch the distance between us grow. The way I feel as though I can't catch my breath and I hear my heart pounding in my ears. How my eyes burn with tears, fighting to hold them back so he doesn't have to see me cry. The emptiness, the total and absolute emptiness I feel when he goes from my sight. And those long, lonely trips home.

I miss him. Christ, I miss him with a hole in my being that can't be filled unless I'm with him. Oh yes, I hear murmurs of 'she's in the honeymoon stage' and I probably am. Believe it or not, however, there is something so pure and right about how we feel when we're together, I believe this period will last long beyond any expectation. I've had two serious relationships, one of which led to a short and very unhappy marriage, but I can honestly say that I've never in my entire life felt the way I do about this man.

This man who completes me.

This man who makes me a better woman by loving me.

This man who opens himself to me and accepts all of me, even the imperfect sometimes hard-to-love me.

This man who gives me more love, and more reason to love and be loved, than at any time in my past.

This man who is the love of my life.

This man who is my future.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your heartache is palapable my friend, I can feel it in your words.

I wish, oh how I wish you did not have to feel the gutwrenching ache of your goodbyes, but even with your hearts aching, I am still very happy for you, to feel this love, to love this love you have.

So many of us seek it, never quite getting finding it. Often too frightened to explore its potential when we do begin to feel it. But you have found it my friend. And I wish with all my heart that you get to someday experience that everyday mundanity of sharing your lives together, that routine that so many of us bemoan.

Huge huge hugs sent your way.

Fiona said...

Oh gosh Sunny I know, we are so fortunate that we have the wherewithal, the opportunity, the time....to be together.

Yes, you're right....it took courage on both our parts to enter into this. And it will take courage to continue, but we both want this and we are determined :)

Thank you for your thoughts and support, it means an awful lot.

Don said...

I, I take it you like this guy just a bit...? ;-) (Yep, I'm still a smartass...)

When I was younger I had a few long-distance relationships. Wow, do they have a way of creating a deep-down ache. Good luck, and may you someday end up in the same time zone at the very least...

Fiona said...

*L* Matt, when I was young there was no internet (or 'evil interweb' as my mum calls it). I'd have had to rely on carrier pigeons and it would have cost me a fortune in birds!!

Thank you for the wishes, it would indeed be nice not to be at opposite ends of the day!

Anonymous said...

Heart wrenching yet beautiful :)

Ob

freebird said...

Oh yes, I feel your pain. And the joy - but that's too weak a word - of loving that makes the parting so painful. I know that this is what makes one (or two?!) feel ALIVE!!!

Anonymous said...

Things will happen as they are supposed to as you well know. You will be togather when the time is right for it. I feel so happy for you and pray that everything works as it should for you both. Love you my friend..and I love seeing you in love!

Mia said...

The byes are the hardest thing. From experience, it never gets easier, if anything its harder.

Yeah the get aways and the trips together are wonderful, but I too cant wait until we're together to do the day to day stuff that couples do.

Sally-Sal said...

Fiona:
What beautiful emotions. Loving someone so much it hurts you to be away from them.

It makes me a little happier, a little brighter every day knowing that kind of love is out there.

Thanks for sharing!

Fiona said...

Oblivion, thanks for visiting :)

FB, I agree about the word...we're nothing short of ecstatic when we're together! The sense of how right and comfortable we are together, we've described it as being 'home'.

Thank you chele, my friend. He and I both deserve the kind of love we share, life's too short to go without it.

Miranda, I knew you'd understand and you're right, it does get harder - as the hello's get more intense, the goodbye's feel worse and worse. I hope you get your day-to-day soon hon!

Sally - it is out there..it is. I was pretty jaded about it all until I met this man. Now I know how amazing love can be :)

Trueself said...

Fiona, I so understand your feelings. I feel the same each time BJ and I manage to get together. The meetings are wonderful and glorious. The goodbyes are absolutely heartwrenching. I only wish for you the same that I hope for BJ and me -- to someday be together for all that day to day stuff.

Fiona said...

Thank you TS, it takes being in a similar situation to truly understand the ache that parting brings.

I wish for day-to-day for you and BJ too.

anna said...

That was so beautifully written. I can relate with every word.

 

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