Last year I was on the phone with my early 20-something stepdaughter Reesa, catching up on life things like we usually do. She brought up a new Internet idea she’d caught wind of – a “medium distance relationship”.
“What’s that?” I asked disdainfully, ready to hate the idea of anything new to me.
She told me there are varying definitions for it, but basically it applies to couples who maybe spend work weeks apart, but time together on the weekends. Maybe they live across a major city from each other and it takes coordinating to spend time together. They’re not quite long distance because they see each other relatively routinely. But they’re not your “usual” living-together-full-time couple either.
I scoffed. “People are bored,” I said. “We’re coming up with all these new very niche definitions.”
Then I paused, my eyes widening. “Wait – are your dad and I in a medium distance relationship?!”
Reesa’s immediate and enthusiastic response: “I’ve wondered that!”
Wes and I have a cyclical marriage these days. Sometimes we spend an AWFUL lot of time together, sharing 19′ of Airstream, and other times we’re apart for weeks at a time. He’ll be out on a guiding trip, or in the field leading trail work. Or, I’ll be in Alaska for a facilitation gig, or attending an arts fair.
It takes logistical coordination (where’s the Airstream, who needs it, how are we getting to the airport, who takes which car, what errands will we do when we’re in civilization). But the wilier demand of our present circumstances is emotional. And when we overlook managing our relationship, we get into trouble.
Put plainly, when we’re apart we get into our own patterns of living our lives. And when we’re together, we both love and drive each other nuts. On the edges of the very-together-times and the far-apart times are transitions, and those can be pretty rough both going into time together and time apart. It’s a lot of change, within ourselves and then between each other.
I have been known to have meltdowns because I feel like Wes is insufficiently happy to see me. He has been known to implode because he needs decompression time and I am yapping merrily away at all waking hours. I get angry when I perceive imbalances in the shared labor of managing the Airstream, like if I feel I’m doing too much of the cleaning. Wes gets pissed and defensive when he feels like I’m demanding he do something only my way.
It’s kind of normal marriage stuff. But it gets turned up because what’s not as normal about our marriage are all the somewhat extreme fluctuations in time together then apart.
Recently Wes left on a ten day work trip. I was reminded of this thing that happens to me when he leaves: one minute he’s here, puttering around, checking and double checking his lists and grabbing his coffee, giving me a hug, and getting into the car. Then, he drives away and…silence.
It has left in me a gasping feeling of stunning loneliness in the past. The first few times, I was utterly surprised at it, and had to sit down and let the giant vacancy suddenly blooming in my chest take over.
Last time, I knew it was coming. I prepared my easel so I could paint immediately after he left – ie, queued myself up something to do.
And my new ritual? As soon as he peeled away, I cleaned. I cleaned the counters and cabinets, swept the floors, tidied things up. I made the Airstream temporarily all mine. Secretly? I reveled in knowing that whatever I did would stay.
I still felt The Feeling. But by knowing it was coming, and having a personal ritual to ease the transition, it didn’t wallop me like it has in the past. I knew it, felt it, and moved through it. When we are apart it is lonely for me. And, I get a whole lot of stuff done, and enjoy getting to decide exactly how I want to spend my time. Cleaning serves as a kind of physical and emotional reset; a moving from one thing into another while claiming my space.
I love Wes. I’m still not sure if we’re in a medium distance relationship, or if that matters (it doesn’t). I also know that one of the things we love most about each other is that both of us are independently committed to our own lives and growth. We choose to align with one another, because we each make the other’s lives better – more fun, more meaningful, and stronger in that we compliment one another.
And we do our best to navigate those transitions in and out of togetherness. It gets a little easier as it gets familiar – like, oh, that’s this feeling. Ride it out. It’ll pass.
Pictured: Me enjoying our new “deck” aka half-finished shed. It’s going to be prett-ay nice to have an enclosed space in which to park our belongings, which have been stacked on the ground serving as a baby rattlesnake nursery (I found two recently; I very carefully moved our belongings away from the Airstream for the time being). Then, there’s my latest commission! 2’x3′, and another reason it will be nice to have storage: my very careful method of storing this laid flat in the Prius feels, to put it bluntly, janky as hell. I’ll be happy to pack it up and mail it out. I have room for commissions starting this summer, lmk if you have one in mind.