proverbial oysters and emoticons
I'm bracing myself for major change. Tomorrow is my last day of work and then I'm off for the next 365 days. I have no plans beyond moving to San Francisco. The world is my oyster. I'm hoping that I don't develop an allergy to shellfish.
Like not seeing the forest for the trees, I've been so focused on the logistics of the change itself that I almost lost sight of the underlying reason for it: being together. Kevin and I have been apart for six months. We've been keeping in touch via Skype, Gchat, and Twitter and there's been some travel between San Francisco and Vancouver, but I'm sick of long distance.
Beyond the challenge of connecting over a bad connection (yes, the reference is to AT&T) or the frustrations of instant messaging with someone when the computer being on doesn't imply that they are necessarily sitting in front of it (hey! [long pause] hello? [long pause] are you there? [no response]), living two separate lives is difficult. I want to be there for Kevin and I want him to be there for me and, most of the time, emoticons just don't cut it. Technological advances have made long distance more bearable, but there's no substitute for a real hug.
But in two days, I won't have to rely on parentheses, colons, lesser than symbols and 3's, x's and o's, etc. any longer. It's all still sinking in, but the forest is coming into focus ;)
