rebeccmeister | Trying to find joy in the small things

I've written about this before, but I am going to write about it again. One of the things that I routinely struggled with, in trying to maintain a long-distance relationship with S, was the imbalance in activities and sharing. With any long-distance relationship, the hard part is, you're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't.

If you move somewhere, and really struggle to survive and thrive in the new place (Texas), it's tempting to look back and get depressed, angry, and jealous about all of the fun and wonderful things you used to do in the former place, which your significant-other can still do. There will be grieving.

If you move somewhere, and find that it is a wonderful (or just better) place, and meet good people, and discover that it's a place where you can survive and thrive (Lincoln; aspects of Texas towards the end), there's a risk that your significant other will become depressed, angry, and jealous, especially if he or she is facing struggles in the old place. After all, life has ups and downs no matter where a person lives.

Lives just wind up way out of sync.

I had to cope with a lot of this jealousy boiling over when I moved to Texas. At first, I would read about incredible bike rides and camping trips and hiking expeditions in Arizona, and would feel anger rising up. I would think about how easy it was to do ceramics, and go rowing, and feel a sense of loss as I watched my life drain away in sweaty hours spent lawnmowing. I could recognize that, physiologically, this was Not Good, so I had to work with myself on the mantra, "Realize that you're not missing out." As written before. I also had to shut off certain channels of information, largely on Facebook, because I could tell they were not helping.

Breaking up with S, he has needed to do something similar, shutting off almost all remaining channels of interaction (this blog, FB, the tweet-thing). The hard part in this is that, for me, an important if not crucial aspect of a relationship is being able to share both the small and large aspects of my life. Most of the joy, for me, occurs in the small things - a shared meal, a bike ride to the grocery store. Dates, with a capital "D", can be good, but sometimes I feel as though putting extra emphasis or intensity on the experience can cause it to become more polarized. That emphasis and intensity are already present simply by the nature of a long-distance relationship; it takes extra effort to reach out, and there's always a heightened awareness that time spent together is precious and all too short, so Better Make It Count. It can feel like living through a telescope. If the only things discussed are the Big Things, a lot of daily life is lost.

I can't ask S to open those channels back up. Instead, the most I can do is focus my energy and attention on being present to myself in the daily small things. My cat has been a huge comfort in this department, because she has no choice other than to do so.

But what of this urge to share with others? What are thoughtful ways of doing this? I can't prevent the jealousy of others - as noted before, jealousy is an emotion that the jealous person needs to deal with.