What Does Long Distance Actually Look Like?

Long distance relationships SUCK. There is a reason why T.V. shows have the main characters split up as soon as one moves away. The reality is that in order to make any relationship work, you need to WORK. It takes much more sacrifice to make one work from miles and time zones away than it does if you live near your loved one.

So while ‘normal’ couples are able to swing on by after work and be able to share the day’s joys and sorrows on a whim, Seamus and I have to plan EVERYTHING so we can get the most time out of each day. Spontaneous to us means, “I got up early so I decided to call you earlier than usual!...And it just now dawned on me that you’re in work…”

So what does the day-to-day of a hyper-planned, sacrificial, silly, loving relationship between an Irishman and a Spoonie look like?

It starts with me waking up to AT LEAST 20 messages from my beloved on his day...what he ate, what he did, who he talked to, how he feels lonely, and how he wants to visit me tomorrow. He finishes up at work as I do my morning routine (drinking all the lemon water and celery juice a girl could dream of) and either going on a walk with my mom or laying in bed waiting for Seamus to get off and call me on his drive home. As I gain energy and momentum, he sleepily says, "Good morning, Beautiful. I've missed you," and continues to talk about how work went that day.

When he get's home, he goes to eat dinner with his family. I go and make breakfast. A couple that eats together, stays together, right?....That's probably not what that saying means...Oh, well!

When we reunite we read, talk, and catch up on work. During the remainder of the day, we suffer from Chronic Facetime Syndrome, which is much more favourable than the numbing sadness that occurs when we don’t binge-video-chat.

It might sound glorious to have 1-6 hours of video time a day with the person you love, and it is a blessing. BUT It’s annoying to have to sit in front of a computer screen! It makes the relationship feel like it's between you and the computer, and not between two people! It's very limiting when we can't go do things together. It's a constant reminder that we are apart because we can't hug each other or hold hands. It's hard to communicate when he has experienced a full day before mine starts, and we are having to do so with inverse energy levels. And even though I get to spend time with him, after a couple of hours of sitting, my body gets extremely stiff. I either push through and start getting snippy or I get up to walk around, and Seamus misses out on his Moriah-time.

Ideal? Not at all, otherwise you'd spend all your time communicating via Facetime. But we make it work for us. When one of us is tired, we watch a show together. That in itself is an adventure of making sure we are on the same second when we start, no one jumps the countdown when we press play, one of us muting the sound on their computer and mooching off the other’s volume, and hoping the wifi works on both ends.

When we are both a bit more awake, Seamus reads to me. Honestly, who can complain when an accented man serenades you with pretty words? We talk about the future and try to map things out without being too hasty.

My boy goes to bed around my early evening, which is when I start hammering away on housework, content writing, and the other conversations I've been putting off all day--sorry, guys! I try my best to schedule all my therapies and appointments for after he goes to bed. If I need to get out of the house, run errands, or hang out with friends, it happens after he's fallen asleep. I don't send him nearly enough messages while he is sleeping because I'm either busy doing everything I've neglected during daylight hours or trying to rest because I don't have enough energy to function anymore.

Obviously this set up isn’t for the lighthearted. You have to sacrifice A LOT. It hardly works for us half the time. Through faulty wifi, sleep deprivation, pictures, voice recordings, blurry screens, and lots of tissues, we continue to trudge through. We know this is just a miserable period of endurance that will lead us to happiness in FINALLY being together. That goal is what keeps us going.