Book Stuff: Chapter 2

My First Long Distance Relationship, Part 1...

I was 20 at the time and he was 21. We'd been dating for about a year and a half by that point and would be together for a little over two more. We had met through a mutual friend and hit it off...much to the mutual friend's chagrin. But I'll get to that later.

We had a blissful life together...for the first year. After that, the honeymoon was definitely over. To be fair, we had some tough circumstances to deal with. I had gotten sick, and would be, for over a year and it was hard on him. Hard on us. By that time, his parents (Mom and Step-Dad) had decided that the fact he wasn't working or in college was my fault as I was clearly a bad influence on him and, in order for him to get his act together, he should go live with his Dad and Step-Mom. I've always believed it had less to do with that and more to do with getting him as far away from me as possible. They lived nearly an hour away, but for two kids without cars, it might as well have been another planet. I was crushed...on the surface. Inside, I was secretly thrilled. I loved him, don't get me wrong, but we needed a change and absence does make the heart grow fonder, right? At least that's what we told ourselves in between sob fests as we cursed the heartlessness of everyone for doing this to us. Deep down, I was relieved. As much as I loved our time together, I needed my own space and I (we) had not yet reached that point of emotional maturity where I could admit that. To him or to myself. Back then, to not want to be with him every second of every day simply had to mean I didn't love or want to be with him anymore. That was simply unacceptable to me. So I kept it to myself and hoped our new arrangement, seeing each other every or every other weekend would give us back the spark I felt we had lost. Oh yeah, did I mention we were no longer having sex? Unfortunate side effect of my illness and, later, of the medication to treat it. So yeah, we were in rough shape...