Wow...okay, this is far longer than I meant it to be and maybe should be a blog entry, but I hope you don't mind me posting it here and it would be really good to hear from someone. Lately, I have been thinking that I come on the forum too much without communicating to friends about my LDR feelings and troubles. There are few that are close enough that I would share these things with and the one I would definitely talk to is rather put out with me right now and we are working to patch things up...so I feel like putting some of these things on our friendship right now wouldn't be so great. *Attempts calming inhalation and exhalation*
After fighting off a pounding headache for most of the day, it seemed like I was fairly non-grouchy when I talked to my SO. I hadn't done much that was interesting today and he was venting about work, yet we somehow talked for a really long time. Truly, he lost me a little when he was talking about detailed music theory as if I understood the complexities (I am a musician, but have only had very basic training in music theory and it's been ages since I picked up my instrument or had a lesson in it). Should I feel badly that my eyes glaze over a little when he gets too complicated? Maybe he feels the same way when I talk in detail about other things that he can't completely identify with (was it Andy who had a thread awhile ago about things that we like, but our SO's can't stand/ aren't into?).
So, my triumph, I think was not launching into jealousy mode and being upset, in conversation with him...at least, about something that would normally have set me off. True, it is still on my mind a little (and that's why I am here, so that I can vent it out), but I thought that I would share a baby step towards reducing my feelings of jealousy. Lately, he and I have not missed a night of talking and seem to be staying on the phone for a long time and seem to be sharing lots of details about our day. It came as a bit of a surprise for me when he shared, almost a week later, that on Tuesday night last week (which was one of the nights he was supposed to talk to me about a serious discussion that we needed to complete and ended up calling me fairly late and avoided the conversation we needed to have, spending most of the time complaining about the men's glee choir director and saying that he had slept for a long time after he came home from choir), he had gone out with a bunch of people from collegium choir (which also, I think boasts lovely ladies who sing--appealing to a musician, ne?) to the bar for a beer and some eats and then to see campus rehearsals of opera performances. That Tuesday, I had also been on Facebook (I know! The dread relationship pirate, Facebook!) writing a reply to a link he had posted for me and some common friends to look at on his wall, when I noticed that he had friended a bunch of people. Connecting it all together, it seemed like he had quite the fun night, got out and did something social, and made some new friends...so I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and remembered these positive things and also that he was telling me now (a little late, but I guess better than never)--at the time, then, I didn't get that terrible knot in my stomach or get sulky or unresponsive with him, but expressed happiness for him. That's good, right? Though, now that I am typing it out, I can't help but wonder why he didn't tell me about something that was so fun to him a week ago (I would hate to think that he thinks I am too boring or too much of a sounding board or something to tell me about these things, too), why he was a bit snappish with me that night and yet took a long time to tell me about his worries and none of his joys, and why he lied to me about coming straight home from choir and sleeping--so, should I give these things much thought? Might they, after all, by worth bringing up with him again?
Er...and the original setback is that I have been wanting to make a Halloween card and send some candies for him for weeks now. I had lots of time, but finally realized that even if I made it tonight, it may not get there in time. Still, I braved my Mom throwing a fit at me for staying up late again and working away at the card and packing up the candy. Then, I tried to calculate what it would cost to ship the very little package to the USA just by surface mail. I was expecting maybe $4.00, but the price was double that! $8.00 maybe doesn't seem like a lot, but it seems ridiculous to me when the package is very small, the candies are from the supplies that I have purchased to hand out to trick-or-treaters and certainly cost much less than the package costs to send (there are four tiny packs of gummies and four lollipops). I really wanted to try and send them tomorrow and have an outside chance of the package getting there in time or not so late that Halloween wouldn't be relevant. ...but now I feel rather defeated and I can't really take all the candies out, because I mentioned them being included in what I wrote to him in the card. I also think that $8.00 could go to something better, like sending a more elaborate Christmas gift or toward a movie ticket on a date the next time he visits. Should I just nix the candies and send the card, take out most of the candies but a few to make it lighter and thinner, or see if the post office quotes a lower price in-person and decide there (but would likely need to re-wrap it if I change my mind)? (...and as an aside, though an important one, my Mom keeps saying that all I am doing lately is living my life for him. Although, she is still sometimes jealous or not supportive of my relationship with him, in some ways I do set aside other things to talk with him on the phone for hours, and many of my free-time activities lately have been to make him things or send him letters (when I am not feeling depressed and sulking around). I find joy in doing things for him, but I do wonder if I am spending too much time thinking about him or being too dependent on him for affection and attention when I am kind of down on my luck with work and far from friends my own age).
After fighting off a pounding headache for most of the day, it seemed like I was fairly non-grouchy when I talked to my SO. I hadn't done much that was interesting today and he was venting about work, yet we somehow talked for a really long time. Truly, he lost me a little when he was talking about detailed music theory as if I understood the complexities (I am a musician, but have only had very basic training in music theory and it's been ages since I picked up my instrument or had a lesson in it). Should I feel badly that my eyes glaze over a little when he gets too complicated? Maybe he feels the same way when I talk in detail about other things that he can't completely identify with (was it Andy who had a thread awhile ago about things that we like, but our SO's can't stand/ aren't into?).
So, my triumph, I think was not launching into jealousy mode and being upset, in conversation with him...at least, about something that would normally have set me off. True, it is still on my mind a little (and that's why I am here, so that I can vent it out), but I thought that I would share a baby step towards reducing my feelings of jealousy. Lately, he and I have not missed a night of talking and seem to be staying on the phone for a long time and seem to be sharing lots of details about our day. It came as a bit of a surprise for me when he shared, almost a week later, that on Tuesday night last week (which was one of the nights he was supposed to talk to me about a serious discussion that we needed to complete and ended up calling me fairly late and avoided the conversation we needed to have, spending most of the time complaining about the men's glee choir director and saying that he had slept for a long time after he came home from choir), he had gone out with a bunch of people from collegium choir (which also, I think boasts lovely ladies who sing--appealing to a musician, ne?) to the bar for a beer and some eats and then to see campus rehearsals of opera performances. That Tuesday, I had also been on Facebook (I know! The dread relationship pirate, Facebook!) writing a reply to a link he had posted for me and some common friends to look at on his wall, when I noticed that he had friended a bunch of people. Connecting it all together, it seemed like he had quite the fun night, got out and did something social, and made some new friends...so I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and remembered these positive things and also that he was telling me now (a little late, but I guess better than never)--at the time, then, I didn't get that terrible knot in my stomach or get sulky or unresponsive with him, but expressed happiness for him. That's good, right? Though, now that I am typing it out, I can't help but wonder why he didn't tell me about something that was so fun to him a week ago (I would hate to think that he thinks I am too boring or too much of a sounding board or something to tell me about these things, too), why he was a bit snappish with me that night and yet took a long time to tell me about his worries and none of his joys, and why he lied to me about coming straight home from choir and sleeping--so, should I give these things much thought? Might they, after all, by worth bringing up with him again?
Er...and the original setback is that I have been wanting to make a Halloween card and send some candies for him for weeks now. I had lots of time, but finally realized that even if I made it tonight, it may not get there in time. Still, I braved my Mom throwing a fit at me for staying up late again and working away at the card and packing up the candy. Then, I tried to calculate what it would cost to ship the very little package to the USA just by surface mail. I was expecting maybe $4.00, but the price was double that! $8.00 maybe doesn't seem like a lot, but it seems ridiculous to me when the package is very small, the candies are from the supplies that I have purchased to hand out to trick-or-treaters and certainly cost much less than the package costs to send (there are four tiny packs of gummies and four lollipops). I really wanted to try and send them tomorrow and have an outside chance of the package getting there in time or not so late that Halloween wouldn't be relevant. ...but now I feel rather defeated and I can't really take all the candies out, because I mentioned them being included in what I wrote to him in the card. I also think that $8.00 could go to something better, like sending a more elaborate Christmas gift or toward a movie ticket on a date the next time he visits. Should I just nix the candies and send the card, take out most of the candies but a few to make it lighter and thinner, or see if the post office quotes a lower price in-person and decide there (but would likely need to re-wrap it if I change my mind)? (...and as an aside, though an important one, my Mom keeps saying that all I am doing lately is living my life for him. Although, she is still sometimes jealous or not supportive of my relationship with him, in some ways I do set aside other things to talk with him on the phone for hours, and many of my free-time activities lately have been to make him things or send him letters (when I am not feeling depressed and sulking around). I find joy in doing things for him, but I do wonder if I am spending too much time thinking about him or being too dependent on him for affection and attention when I am kind of down on my luck with work and far from friends my own age).
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