in-love, alone
I’m exploring solitude more romantically.
I’ve been married for over a year, although this has only been one of six years long distance with my husband. We see each other when we can and are close to ending this part of our chapter soon.
It’s transforming to be in a long-term, long-distance relationship. I was 20 years old when I first started dating my husband. As time and your twenties do, things have changed significantly. While I have never been happy about the separation, then or now, I am grateful for the growth that I mainly nurtured on my own.
We’re both ready, with a dull, aching desire, for the distance to end. We want to wake up in the morning on our days off, turn to each other and smile. We want to look at each other without mid-conscious anxiety about the day that this visit ends. We want to choose when we need time to be alone, rather than struggle to find out when we can be together.
We are ready because we’ve put in our time apart. We’ve served our sentence, both in separation and in solitude. We know how to be alone, and how we each want to spend our time on our own.
I see differences in myself. When I first met my husband, I didn’t know it, but all I wanted was for someone to love me. I didn’t understand what that meant. I was innately searching for a feeling. The love that I wanted had to come from a deep place of understanding, kindness, and care. My husband freely offered me what I was searching for so feverishly. Since then, I’ve learned that I, too, can give myself this kind of love. What I thought was originally so magical and unattainable from anyone but my husband has been living inside me my entire life.
I’ve learned that I need to have coffee in the morning before doing anything else. If I go for a walk first, I feel overwhelmed. Starting the day with exercise activates my sympathetic nervous system in a way that normally, you want to avoid. I’ve learned that, sometimes, I just need to be alone. It might be for five minutes, hiding in the bathroom. I might need an hour or two to walk at a slow pace and listen to a podcast. This isn’t about not spending time with my husband, this is about how spending time with my husband has taught me how to enjoy spending time with me.
This is all to say, my husband doesn’t particularly like doing any or all of these things. When I was 20, my definition of love was different. I’m sure it will continue to change, but now, I don’t need him to like everything that I like anymore. I don’t need romantic weekends where we read together. It’s not romantic if he doesn’t enjoy doing them.
I can separate the romance that my husband and I have together, and the moments with myself that are different, but the same kind of love. If I want to romanticize my life, my husband being with me is a plus, and it’s also not required.
The past six years of my life have detailed just how much I can love myself while loving him.