Snail Mail

I haven't been able to write lately. I've hit a writer's block, and everyone who writes can understand this.

After leaving North Carolina and Ryan behind, my world doesn't seem as bright and shiny anymore. After having the closeness, then getting used to it being gone....well....it's understandable.

A couple days after I got back to California, I wrote Ryan a letter. The good old style...snail mail, hand written, and heartfelt. The hardest part is that it takes so long for it to be delivered! With Sundays and holidays, and the USPS taking days off, the letter took almost a week to get there. Originally, I wasn't going to tell him that I had sent him a letter. I wanted him to be surprised. But I was so excited about it that I finally had to tell him. Of course, I didn't tell him what it said. By that point I had forgotten some of its contents anyway.

On Martin Luther King, Jr's holiday Monday, he was having a really bad day. We had an argument the night before, work was irritating him, and he was suffering from a severe lack of sleep. I had forgotten it was a holiday, and I was hoping the letter would be in his mail box that day to help cheer him up. I couldn't be there personally to help his mood, so I was hoping this would be something special.

I have never hated Martin Luther King, Jr so much. The letter stayed wherever it was, loaded on some delivery truck ready to be delivered. Not where it really needed to be.

Of course, it was delivered the next day. He read it to me over ventrilo that night. I started crying. Not just tears, but almost sobbing. My own heart was breaking over its own words. Talking about some of the most special memories I have from when I was with him. Feeling his hands putting my necklace on. Feeling his breath on my skin. Singing Fireflies.

I feel like a broken record, but no one really knows how painful a long distance relationship is until you are in one. When you experience the pain of being so far away, but joy from finding someone so special. Some days, the joy is more than the pain. On other days, the pain is more than the joy.

Some days I dread seeing him again on a temporary basis, because I dread leaving. I dread feeling the pain of walking away when that is the exact opposite of what I want to do. I know that there will be a permanent fix to a temporary problem, but I have a hard time seeing it, believing it, trusting it....

My own insecurities get in the way of that. I have had so many promises made and broken to me, that I really do not take a promise at face value. I expect it to be broken. Ryan is really helping me see that he really does keep promises, and every day I expect it to be broken less and less.

The day will come, no matter how near or far in the future (since it's all relative) when he is here with me.