I was happy.  It was one of the best years of my life, but still more often than not, in the quiet times of the evening or late night, I felt terribly empty.  At this point you may smell a slight whiff of cliché.  But really I’m not saying this was something about N being my soulmate or something like that because honestly I don’t know.  I feel like we are meant for each other and perhaps I expected that from the beginning and that’s part of how this all happened.  Although life never appeared perfect, he was someone I could see a future with even then (which was extremely odd for me).  I could never picture it but things felt right with him… in a way that they never had with anyone else before.

I would get irritated with my lovers (as I could no longer deal with committing to a relationship) and my mind would always flash back to him. He was perfect for me.  Even when we were fighting he was perfect for me.  At the same time, even if we had made it through that summer, even if he hadn’t drifted off and I hadn’t I don’t think it would’ve worked out from there.  I think we each needed that time apart.  That time when you truly feel and know you’re without someone to realize how right we were together.  It was rock bottom.  No matter what there was no chance of it ever working out and no one had really, truly wronged the other.  We were finished mostly because of distance and the situation.

I never once let my mind even entertain the thought that there was a chance for us.  When he got in touch with me and seriously began talking to me I took it with a grain of salt—with the assumption he was messing with me.  It “entertained” me, and I read the texts out loud and joked with my friends.  I guess that really backfired on me, but I’m perfectly okay with it.

Now at this point, I just want to remember all of this.  For us (humans) things are more valuable when we know what it is like to be without them.  Therefore I don’t want to take our relationship for granted.  I know what it’s like to truly be without N.  To not have him returning to me (like he will after deployment), to be far away from him in a way that miles can’t measure, a way that’s much worse.  I want to keep this in mind always.  I never want a monotonous marriage in which there is an assumption that our relationship will always being there.  I mean we are beyond concrete, but I want to truly value every minute of our time together and always appreciate him for the wonderful person he is.

Also, we’re in South Carolina for a bit longer, but N got stationed where we wanted to go.  Eee!  Can’t wait to move and get our own place (currently living with him and his roommate).

The entire weekend was magnificent.  Now, I’m not saying it was perfect, but I’m in love with him so it kind of was to me.  A lot of things happened, a lot of things were said and promises were made.  I cried a lot about leaving.

Our plans have changed.  Living together after prototype isn’t really an option… he hadn’t told me till I was with him.  I was devastated…

I’m flying out to see him.  I never imagined I would be gutsy enough to do it.  I’ve become a nervous person, and I haven’t been out in the world much.  I always figured if I flew somewhere it would be with someone and not all by myself.  I also never imagined I would have the money to fly to see him… basically I didn’t think I would even get to see him until October or November (a 6 to 7 month stretch).

For the majority of our relationship we have been in contact through phone calls and texts.  We probably have only been together, in-person a little over a month.  I never imagined that a relationship like this would work for me… or at all, but truly our bond is strong.  I feel like our relationship is just as stable, if not more, than most young couples’ relationships.

I never imagined all of this would happen.  I didn’t think it was possible.  I never thought I would see N again, and although it didn’t feel right, I knew I couldn’t get in touch with him and figured romantically we didn’t have a chance.  Now we have been together for a couple of months less than a year, and I will be seeing him in 3 days…

Last week I started talking to him about his break.  He told me how he hoped to see me but of course it was up to me, and he understood my saving thing and being inexperienced with flying.  Last Tuesday, or sometime close to that, I was messing with my money/bank account.  I suddenly realized how much money I had accumulated.  Going to see him suddenly became a possibility.  Would I really let some nervousness about flying cause me to miss out on the chance to see him and have a fun little vacation?  No!  So this past Thursday I purchased my plane tickets.

I’m leaving from the Charlottesville airport.  I have a layover in Charlotte and by Thursday evening of the week after this one I will be in his arms again.  Overall I’m excited although for certain I might get a little nervous about seeing him, and I’m sure on the day of I will be nervous about the airport and flying.  I also have no clue about packing yet although my plans are to just have a carry-on bag.  I’m kind of worried about looking like crap when I’ll finally be meeting his friends but oh well.

Although this weekend didn’t work out, we do have tentative plans for when he has leave in October.  He is going to take me to Virginia Beach to meet his family and then we are going to head up to D.C. and museum hop.

When he brought this up I was vaguely ecstatic.  He knows I’m a complete museum nerd and a few days prior I had mentioned that we should go to the Navy museum in D.C. eventually (the paper had a section on some of the exhibits).  I know he hears what I’m saying, but I didn’t think he actually thought about it–his shifts are quite often over 12 hours so I don’t really expect too much.  Evidently I was wrong as he had been thinking about this and looking at hotels, etc.

This is wonderful to look forward to, and I would much prefer seeing him for longer and on a kind of vacation as opposed to me going down to South Carolina and hanging out at his house for a few days <– He actually said this when we were talking last night.  Obviously I agree.  Still I miss him, but that has become a part of my life for the past almost 10 months… it’s become part of who I am practically…

You still work the same amount of hours each day although you will not have a break on the weekends.  I know this must suck.  You also no longer work from 7am to 7pm.  Now, instead it is 11am to 11pm.  By the time you get home I’m generally asleep.  You’ll send me a text, which I either read a couple of hours later or in the morning.  Basically by the time I respond you are usually asleep.  In the morning you feel it is adequate to send an “I’m heading to work babe.  I love you.” and then you are off.  I think half the time you don’t even see my reply until you get out that night.

It used to be that we had a few hours in the evenings when we could text or call.  Now, somehow, with this new shift time, you have no time for me.  You don’t want to talk to me in the mornings for whatever reason.  On Wednesday I got on Facebook to accept a friend request and saw that you had been on for the last hour chatting with your buddy.  I’m guessing maybe you were using messenger, too.  Who knows…

When I texted you, you told me you really won’t have much time for the next two weeks.  Yesterday morning when I tried to talk more about it all you could do was argue.  I’m not stupid.  I saw that you were sitting on Facebook.  I know your friend is in a similar situation and that perhaps it is more helpful to you to complain with/to him, but can I please have a little time??  You said you’re giving me the time you have.  How pleasantly condescending.  Do you realize that I no longer get anything??  You aren’t deployed, so I wasn’t prepared for this and then today you go back to not being loving at all.  I really don’t know how to handle anything anymore.  What am I to you?

At first I thought you were just having a bad day but then that day became 3, and I’m certain this absence of love isn’t going to disappear tomorrow.  How did we get here?  I was finally happy and alright.  I was enjoying life and not hurting so much for you when suddenly you needed to talk.  We go in circles.  I’ve given you so many easy chances to call it quits, but you won’t.

I have to tell you, I’m not going to.  I’m not ready to give up unless you are.  Honestly, I’m guessing you don’t want to hurt me… but this whole thing is probably worse than ending it now.  While I’m not stressed and I care less than I have in a long time and I’m generally in a good mood, the second I stop making sure I’m in a good mood… everything is going to collapse on me.  In the back of my mind I know I’m slowly being strangled by our relationship and sometimes my heart feels like a large piece of glass that is sharp and spinning inside of my chest.

Pushing everything away right now is working for both of us I guess.  Although you sound so unhappy… just tell me something.  We can make a change, and I’ll vanish.  I’ll cut all ties and eventually get over all of this… you can too.

I’m not really sure what happened to us…

Continually people talk about how they form some deep, intense relationship through long-distance because of the fact that you get to know someone on an emotional level as opposed to physical.  N doesn’t talk much (I guess in a way neither do I).  He just doesn’t.  He is usually tired and in a shit mood recently because of work.  I haven’t learned anything new about him in the past 2 or 3 weeks probably.  I haven’t had some deep emotional discussion with him.  We don’t say many “I miss you’s”.  We wait.

And recently and often I’m being severely pessimistic.

Did you really think this would work?  What did you expect?  Of course he’ll lose interest, or someone will stumble into his life and take his interest.  You will probably lose interest, too.  Can we really make it until October if we need to?   You don’t even have real plans for after that, so it will just be this all over again… endless waiting and hurting and worrying and missing him.

Eventually I suck it up and move on from these thoughts because honestly I want this to work.  Even when I wanted to scream and strangle him through the phone, I wanted this to work.  I want to make it to the point where we can be together.  Where we’ll have the option of getting so fucking sick of being around each other that we’ll despise each other.  That’s all I want.  The ability to be with him enough that being sick of him is an option.

I don’t want to be left wondering again.  Left thinking that just maybe if I had done something differently or if he had it could have worked.