Being a 21 year old I am still definitely trying to find myself as a person.
With Skyler being roughly 800 miles away I can’t just drive to see him when I need or want. Which can be tough sometimes because sadly I’m not the most independent person. I can be very insecure when it comes to who I am and who I want to be. When things get rough in my life it is really hard to not have Skyler right there to just comfort me.
As some of you may have remembered from my previous post my dad was very ill, sadly he passed away the other day. With Skyler not being here I had to find the strength in myself to not slowly break down into a hot mess. I couldn’t just hide out away from the world no matter how badly I wanted to because I have other obligations and responsibilities such as school and work.
Unfortunately though Skyler suffered from it. I was becoming distant from him as well as my friends. I just didn’t know what to do or what to say. Of course they’d all have their sympathetic looks, and condolences which are always appreciated. I just didn’t know if I’d be able to handle it. It took me a few days to get passed the initial grief and sadness, not that it ever fully goes away. I started to become myself a little bit more and more every day.
Being in an LDR I can often feel like I’m alone most of the time, I want to be that couple you see holding hands, and giving each other those loving glances. I used to wonder is this even a real relationship without the physical and intimate parts of it. I began to get really insecure, but the longer Skyler and I are together the more and more I learn about myself. I learned that even if its harder to be on my own without him right there, I can still do it. He may not physically be there but he is in all the ways he can. I’m not too bad of company for myself. 😉
Not that I don’t want to close the distance between Skyler and I, because I do more than anything. But right now I’m able to focus on finishing my degree and then we can see whats nextt. I’ve learned from being in this relationship I am a lot more capable than I used to give myself credit for. It helps that Skyler never lets me believe otherwise, his constant love and support has helped push me to finish school, and further other goals.
I’ve learned how to become much more trusting and open in our relationship. From previous bad relationships I’ve had severe trust issues, and being in a long distance relationship you can’t have that or it will slowly kill your relationship. I’ve never been the kind of person to speak my mind, I’m very timid and in blatant terms a push over. Skyler has helped me come through that a little bit by making me speak about things that are bother me in our relationship instead of just pushing them under the rug until it gets to be to much,
Being in a LDR definitley is helping me grow more and more into finding the person I hope to become some day.
Inspired by this LDR Writing Prompt: Self Strength
Tag: long distance
My LDR Journey: Give into the Fear
I’m going to be 100 percent honest with you guys: When Richard and I discussed being in a LDR for the first time a few months into dating, I was all for it. Richard, on the other hand, was not so much…
I learned a lot from the good and the bad from my first LDR, and I just knew that having a LDR with Richard was going to be no problem. I knew I loved him. I knew I cared about him. I knew I could commit to someone so special without needing to have that person physically in my life every single day.
Richard had never been in a LDR before. Thinking of living an ocean apart from each other after having lived just down the street from me for a whole year made Richard nervous, scared, and unsure about the whole thing. When Richard would get nervous about the prospect of a LDR, I would interpret it as his lack of commitment, his lack of enthusiasm, and worse of all, his potential lack of love for me.
But what I didn’t take into account at the time was this: Being in a LDR is like bungee jumping. If you’ve done it before, all you can think about is the exhilarating rush of jumping off the platform and experiencing the freedom of the free fall, making you feel more alive than ever! But if you’ve never done it before, all you can think of is “How do you drum up the courage to jump off somewhere so high only being tethered to a platform by a rope?!”
So instead of hearing Richard’s nerves in an empathetic way, trying to understand what it must be like to all of a sudden throw yourself into a LDR with the one you love, I was listening to Richard’s concerns with a filter dominated with impatience and experience, knowing that we had all the right ingredients to make a LDR work (commitment, communication, care and most importantly – love) and wondering how he couldn’t see that it was going to be alright in the end!
Using the bungee jumping analogy again: Instead of giving Richard the space to freak out over his first bungee jump, as all people do one way or another, I was just yelling “Richard! You’re going to be fine! I’ve done it before! It is so fun! Trust me! Just jump!”
Reflecting on it a few months after our first conversation on LDRs, I realized that I approached the topic completely wrong. Instead of telling Richard to push through his fear and trust unconditionally because his love for me should guide him there without a second thought was quite small-minded of me. I am someone who lives without regrets. So, while I wouldn’t want to take that moment back because it taught me so much, I wish I could have approached Richard’s nerves a different way by creating a space that allowed him to share his concerns, his nerves, his thoughts, and his feelings without judgment and with unconditional empathy. Ultimately, I wish I could have given him space to give into his fears so that he could move on from them in a safe way.
I know now that if Richard wasn’t serious about our relationship that he would have never entertained the idea of a LDR. The mere fact that he wanted to discuss the option with me and took my feelings on LDRs into account – that was the sign of his unconditional love for me. His nerves, his hesitation, his feelings – those were signs of his humanity.
It’s important to know the difference, and I have definitely learned my lesson.
90 Day LDR Challenge: Day 30
Day 30: If you two could go anywhere in the world together where would it be and why?
Cat: Somewhere tropical!! That’s why I reblog a lot of pictures of the beach or tropical getaways on here. A week or two somewhere tropical in a gorgeous resort with Richard sounds like heaven to me.
Richard: We keep talking about going Bora Bora for our honeymoon or for an expensive holiday.
Cat: I love how those are essentially the same thing, ha!
Richard: You know what I mean, nummins… It looks so serene there and somewhere to get away from the world and totally relax. Otherwise, I’d love to go travelling in France together and go to the mecca of French culture: Disney Land Paris ;D
Cat: Ladies and gentlemen, the love of my life…
90 Day LDR Challenge: Day 29
Day 29: Do you remember what you were both wearing the first time you video chatted (or saw each other)?
(Note: We decided to answer this question without knowing what the other person answered just to see what we would come up with on our own…)
Cat: Okay, the first time we met I was wearing jeans, a black long-sleeved shirt, brown booties and a burgundy leather jacket. I’m think Richard was wearing jeans, a black t-shirt, and a grey jacket?
Richard: We didn’t actually video chat before we met (I was shy.), but I believe I was wearing jeans, a leather jacket and a shirt. And Cat was wearing a maroon leather jacket and dark red pants(?).
Okay so it wasn’t a slam dunk, BUT we still sorta remember after almost 3 years, haha!
Reblog if you are missing your significant other right now because you don’t live near each other.
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90 Day LDR Challenge: Day 28
Day 28: Describe the look of your dream apartment/house together!
Richard: I really like modern designs, but Cat tends to like places with a bit more character. So, probably something like a town house in Georgetown (like House of Cards) but modern features inside.
Cat: Sounds perfect to me. 🙂
Slice of Life 