Looooong Distance

Photo Credit: Images by Jaimie

My best-friend and I have been in a long distance relationship for over two years.

My husband is my best-friend and "best-friend" as in soul-mate because let's face it, Ryan would rather stick a pencil in his eye than stand in line at Victoria's Secret or see a new Broadway Show.  However he is my absolute best-friend and I love him for many reasons, but you'll find out one of those many reasons with this post.

  

This past week has been challenging.  Scratch that, the past two weeks.  It's just one of those times when things just aren't going your way.  To give you an idea of what my job is without getting into details, here's kind of what I do:

 

So to say the least, it requires a lot of time studying and 100% perfection.

It's stressful and I have spent a lot of time focusing on that.

Things weren't going my way the past two weeks, no matter how much time I was putting in and it was frustrating.  I started feeling down on myself and my confidence was severely lacking after awhile.  My husband spent our entire Thanksgiving break motivating me.  I know it sounds silly but he would occasionally remind me of my past accomplishments and just give me affirmations.  He put so much energy into making sure that I felt better and today went off without a problem.  I had to re-take a test and although it wasn't flawless, I got through.  

I also took a quiz on new material and got 100%

BOOYAH

My husband couldn't have been happier.  It's absolutely wonderful to be able to share in that type of happiness with someone.  It wasn't a fake or planned type of happiness, he's genuinely happy that I'm so excited. So to say the least, I have an amazing husband (yes, I'm bragging) but he's also a wonderful partner.  We aren't without our occasional fights, arguments, and moments of deep loathing stares, but we work through all of it.

We're a mil-to-mil couple, meaning that we're both in the military.

He's in the Marine Corps and I'm in the Air Force, and if you know anything about the different branches sometimes working together, the Marine Corps and Air Force don't overlap.

So Ryan is stationed in one place and I'm somewhere else.

This is where you can insert the whole, "well that totally sucks."

Why yes, yes it does.

It's been like this for two years.  I'm either in school and he's stationed at a USMC base, or when I became active duty, we're at two different locations.

It's not like this was some kind of surprise...

If the military wanted you to have a spouse, they would have issued you one.

It comes with the territory.  You could both be in the same branch and never be at the same base.  It all just depends. We're actually incredibly fortunate for multiple reasons but Ryan and I did plan on when/how we got married due to our military lifestyle. 

However, the good news is that Ryan is almost done!!

We're fortunate to be stationed fairly close to each other so that we can visit twice a month.

Thanksgiving was a treat because we had four days together.

Soon, we'll get to be together fo-eva.

I know, it sounds like the lyrics to a bad love song, but I am sooo excited.

We finally get to be together and just be married.

One of the most challenging aspects of being married and long distance would be the  

constant pick-up of where we last left off.

It's easier to get into petty arguments because you're not used to the way someone does something,

but on the flip side, it can be easier to ignore certain things because you don't want to waste the time you have together with fighting.

It'll be an adjustment, but something that I'm definitely looking forward to and quite possibly the best birthday/Christmas present I could get :)

\\\in other news///

 

I just saw Lawless and it was intense.  I don't do well with graphic violence/blood and there was lots of it.  The movie is dark and covers a family who sells their own batch of moonshine during Prohibition.  There were many parts where my roommate let me know when it was okay to look at the screen again.  

Despite all of the violence, Tom Hardy was in it and I adore him.

Did I ever tell you guys about when I met him?

They were doing premieres on military bases for the movie, Warrior, and he 

literally sat right next to me in the theater.

We were c-h-a-t-t-i-ng. I was probably 50 shades of red (haha get it) and the man is gorgeous and his accent, whoa man.  But anyways, I'm a huge fan and The Dark Knight Rises comes out on December 4th!  Oh hello Bain.

x-o-x-o