Going the Distance

Once again I find myself at the start of yet another school year down in Muncie at Ball State. It's my 3rd year down here and my 5th year of college. Needless to say I am more than ready to be done, which I will be come May! With this new school year comes the start of another 9 months of a long distance relationship. Even though my apartment in Muncie and Fort Wayne are only 80 miles and about an hour apart, it still is not fun to deal with so much space.

Being away from my family, the majority of my friends, and Joe never gets any easier. I'm a homebody to begin with; so living by myself and going about my day to day life on my own can get lonely. It also makes being in a relationship different and at times difficult. While we definitely don't have it too rough and we see each other nearly every weekend, it doesn't keep it from being rough sometimes. Not getting to see your significant other whenever you want is the dumps and when I am home I usually have a pretty intense schedule of sorts making sure I fit in everyone and everything and spend enough time with people to keep everyone happy. 

So, during the school year unless I'm home for breaks and unless he comes to Muncie, I see Joe about once a week for a total of a few hours. It's better than nothing but it definitely makes me jealous of people that get to see their boyfriends daily or whenever they want. I also makes other aspects of a relationship... The majority of our communication throughout the week is through text messages and one nightly phone call right before bed. He works and is going to school and I'm juggling class and school organizations, so we are rarely having downtime at the same time. When we have an argument there isn't the "luxury" of being able to talk face to face about it. And let's be honest, sometimes it's just nice to lay around doing nothing or to have the option to do something together when we want.

This is also part of the reason we chose to have a year and a half engagement. Trying to plan a wedding while in two different places, on tight weekend constraints, and while I'm finishing school and he's in the middle of school did not sound very fun. This way we can pace ourselves and do a little at a time before I graduate and planning kicks into full gear. 

In reality our "long distance" relationship isn't all that bad, just inconvenient and annoying a lot of the time. I'm also just big baby when it comes to this kind of thing. So, here's to another school year and 9 more months of independent living!