Long Distance (Part III)

Much of our early relationship was spent in "long distance" mode.  Which sometimes seems so ironic to me because we grew up near each other, our parents (still, to this day) live 10 minutes apart from one another, and there were so many years where we were so close... but not together.  The most annoying was the very early days of our budding romance, right after we decided we were "together."  We had tip-toed around each other all summer, not sure what the other was feeling.  It wasn't until 5 days (FIVE DAYS!) before I had to fly back to Texas for college that we got our crap together and figured out that we loved each other.  And we had five days to enjoy it before the long periods of separation began.

Jordan stayed in Fairbanks to work and prepare for his mission.  I went back for my sophomore year at Stephen F. Austin in Nacogdoches, TX.  And here's the crazy thing: I think the fact that our early years were spent in separation made the whole experience that much more romantic.  There were declarations of love, written down for me to go and read latter.  There were long. drawn out phone conversations that lasted until 4 am, even though I had class at 8.  There were those thrilling moments when we were finally reunited, if only briefly, and they were out-of-this-world exciting.

A curious thing happened for us that I think foreshadowed the fact that we were going to make it, despite being mired in long-distance.  Rather than drifting apart, we drifted together.  When I first went to Texas, we'd email daily, and talk every 3 or 4 days on the phone.  Then Jordan came to visit me at school in November.  After that, we talked on the phone daily, and emailed several times a day.  When I returned to school after spending Christmas with Jordan (where we literally spent every waking second together), we proceeded to talk on the phone nearly every break we had in the day, and then we were too busy talking on the phone to send emails more than once a day.

Looking back, I can see how the long distance deepened our relationship.  Built on more than mutual attraction, more than convinence, more than even friendship, the very foundation of our romantic relationship was built upon sincere commitment, a very real desire we had to be together.  That sense of commitment, due to the nature of long distance relationships, has solidified in our marriage.  We feel deeply loyal to each other because we had years of practice of being loyal to each other.