Before I moved to France, Guillaume and I dated long distance for well over a year. While I can't say that long distance is easy in any capacity, I can say that starting off our relationship online truly was a blessing for us.
I like to think I'm good at expressing myself, and Guillaume as well, but dating online pushes you to be an even more open and honest communicator than ever before. When we both sat down in front of our computers and turned on our cameras, all we had to express the depth of our affections were our words.
Words of affirmation nearly became my love language that year.
A long distance relationship is a real lesson in trust. We lived very independent lives, him going to school and me going to work, but we always made time to shoot each other texts during the day and video call each evening. We tried a lot of new things to stay 'connected': we would cook together with the camera on, time ourselves when watching videos so they would play at the same time, and play games that let us do the things we weren't able to do: run, jump, hug, adventure and be together.
Sometimes I feel nostalgic for these times. We were so creative!
From the get go, we were very serious about each other. And to be honest? You have to be when you're dating long distance. It takes time, commitment and a strong will to love someone you can't be with. It allowed us to connect with our minds first, and to fall in love with who we were as people. The beautiful thing is, as we spoke more and more, we never seemed to run out of things to say and learn about each other.
We have only been living together for 6 months, and while we naturally got used to sharing the same space, the appreciation for what we endured while long distance hasn't left me. It's hard to explain the emotional pain of saying 'I miss you' to someone you can see and hear, but not touch. We spent so many nights speculating about our future and dreaming of the day where we could do simple tasks together like grocery shopping or just sitting on the couch.
Sometimes when I'm drying the dishes or tucking into bed, I'm hit with a wave of incredulous gratefulness. It's been 2 years now since the day we met in person for the first time, and I would relive it 1000 times again if I could.
I hope you all had a lovely Valentines Day spent with someone special, whether that be two feet or 2000 miles away.
Happy Valentines Day :)
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