Adventure #19: Distance

We started out our relationship long distance: 3 hours from 13346 to 14150.  It seems silly now, how novel your idea was in August 2009, to come to Tonawanda "on your way home from Colgate."  Today, I'd consider that "bad day" distance, enough to celebrate.  That first trip from Colgate to Tonawanda immediately puts a lump in my throat today, thinking of your willingness to drive an extra 6 hours just to spend less than a full day with me.  I remember thinking how nervous I was for you to meet my parents, not the other way around: I knew how effortlessly charming and genuine you were.  It'd be impossible for anyone to dislike you.

Despite our beginnings - 3 hours, then 8 hours, then seeing each other almost every single day for 2 years - and our incredible ability to engage each other from a distance, I was unbelievably nervous to put another 8 hours in between us so that I could go to the best law school that would take me.  You were the rock, as usual, reassuring me and reminding me of the strength and depth of our bond.  It wasn't until we said our real goodbye - the one with the remainder of my belongings in my car and my OnStar ready to direct me - that I saw your nerves.  Through my own tears, I watched yours fall down your face, and cursed myself for thinking that Boston could offer me anything that you couldn't.

Somehow, you've maintained your strength in the 19 months since that day.  It's 19 months almost to the day, in fact.  And still, 12:04 AM, I have tears rolling down my cheeks.  I want to believe that this is just another adventure of ours, but it's so hard not to wish it was an adventure next to each other, like all of the rest.  I find myself constantly wondering what Friday would be like in 20008, in your kitchen, your bedroom, your life.

Fridays were always ours.  While each day was challenging for me for our first year apart during 1L, Fridays were undoubtedly some of the consistently hardest.  Fridays often entailed a little overtime, and then an adventure of ours: some official, some not.  I can't remember a Friday that we didn't spend together, at least for some portion of the time, when we were both in DC.  Today, Friday (well, it's after midnight now, but this past day), I miss you fiercely.  I miss getting to touch your skin as I scratch your back.  I miss your silly noises as you enjoy scratches, stretches, and tastes of whatever we're eating.  I miss your ability to make me feel safe.  I miss watching you concentrate and watching you slowly, accidentally drift off to sleep as I desperately try to keep you awake.  I miss every little bit of you.  I miss my Friday Matt.

I can vividly remember being on my balcony in Arlington, talking to you during a break in Rosh Hashanah services while you were in Manhattan.  It was one of our few trips apart from each other over the two years that we spent in DC.  You told me that you missed me, and that struck me as so sweet; we saw each other every day.  I know that someday, I'll miss getting to hear that you miss me, because we'll be next to each other all of the time.  But gosh, what I wouldn't give to swap out one of those days for one of these days.

This is just another adventure for us.  It's all at once familiar and new, wanted and despised.  I cannot wait to make another list of adventures for wherever we next end up, checking off items as we go.  But for now, as I go to bed exactly 435 miles away from you, this is our adventure. 

It's been 580 days, and here is my recap, to the best of my memory, of trying to make sure that we don't get lost on this one.

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