Today while listening to music I heard a lovely cover of a song which included these lyrics: "I'm leaving on a jet plane, don't know when I'll be back again." It took me back to the distinct memory of a feeling like my heart was being torn out as I took off from Chicago nearly three years ago after saying my goodbyes to Rex and my parents in the airport. I know that sounds dramatic, and I'm not much of one for drama, but it truly was quite dramatic. When I left at that time I didn't know if I would be staying 3 months, six months, a year, or perhaps forever. I was leaving and putting the results of the relationship into God's hands. Hearing the song again today left me in tears.
Switchfoot's "Enough to Let Me Go" has a similar affect on me. It was a song I listened to over and over as I was preparing to leave for Romania nearly three years ago, and which serenaded me on Spotify as I would work on projects in the room where I was staying.
As the sequel to my introduction of the topic of long distance relationships, today I will describe some of the challenges we faced using the same bullet points I used in my last post.
1. Time difference
We know, of course, that people on the other side of the world sleep while we're awake and are awake while we sleep, but Rex and I also learned that talking at 7am his time and 3pm my time found us communicating in entirely different moods. He would be slow and sleepy, I would be in high gear, full of energy to get things done. Deep or meaningful conversations don't happen too easily in this kind of scenario. Regardless, we found ways to work around this.
2. Figuring out when schedules allowed for talking
Rex and I wanted to be involved in friendships and responsibilities around us, and not simply become distractions to each other. So, we looked decided that there were three times of the day that we were allowed to text or make a phone call. That was usually my morning before 8am (12am CST), 3pm (7am CST), and my night time at or before 10pm (2pm CST). Any other time of day we were restricted from texts and phone calls which would distract from work. We liked to use,
- Google Docs
- Email
- Voice recordings
- Video recording (although we didn't do this often)
Usually we talked at his 11pm and my 7am often for about an hour. I know it sounds like a lot, but we had a lot to say. As we hung up we were never sure whether to say "good morning" or "goodnight." Also, weekends aren't necessarily free days when you're working in missions because you ministry happens when the people are available, such as weekends and evenings.
3. We didn't want to distract from other friendships or responsibilities
We really learned from observing what didn't work so well for us. For example, there was a time some guests came to eat dinner at the home where I was staying, and I was invited to join. I remember being largely absorbed in a texting conversation with Rex and later realizing that this was inhibiting me from connecting well with the people around me. So we really tried not to be on our phones talking to each other when it was a beneficial time to spend time with other people. But we had to be careful to prioritize our time with each other as well - especially if it was a scheduled call.
During much of my time in Romania I had limited or no cellular data, so that meant I also couldn't make or receive calls unless I was home or at another place with WiFi. Eventually I realized that it was totally worth it to pay for better phone service with international minutes as well as more GB and faster internet signal. This paid off the week I went camping and the time we went on a walk together - he along Lake Michigan and me along the Danube River. That way we were able to walk next to water "together."
4. Having marriage in mind (and the accompanying pressures)
We both were of the mind that our dating relationship was ultimately for the purpose of understanding each other well enough to know if marriage was right for us. Rex made it a point to ask my dad's permission before we made the relationship official, and the topic of marriage had come up a couple of times before I left for Romania. If he weren't someone I were considering marrying, I wouldn't have bothered with a long distance relationship anyway. I would have said goodbye and not looked back. But having seen some of his character and realizing that guys like him are hard to find, I decided to take the risk, to pray about it, to get to know him better just as he was getting to know me. If we reached the point where we realized the relationship shouldn't continue towards marriage, we would revert to being just friends.
That being said, there were tons and tons of questions in my mind that I wanted to talk with Rex about. Someone once suggested that it was healthy to limit our conversations to texting during the week and save phone calls for the weekend. In the end I realized that this only created unnecessary pressures and strain on an already strained situation. Texting is far less efficient than calling anyway, and, eventually I would just call him in the mornings before heading out for the day.
This made life much better because I got things off my chest when they were bothering me instead of trying to bottle them up and save them for the perfect time. And if I had free time when Rex was busy or sleeping I could always get the message to him using email, google docs, etc. While I was away I learned to confide in Rex about most things and we became very close this way.
5. Not getting to hang out with each other or in each other's social groups
From the beginning there was this sense that being long distance meant we couldn't go out to eat together, go on walks together, play games together, spend time together with people who are important to us. Rex said that looking at it this way was only going to put a negative spin on things, and it was much better to look for things we can do together.
For this reason we looked for ways to create special moments in unique ways. We played Words with Friends on our phones, we played Sudoku on video calls, ate breakfast and dinner together in a video call (remember the time change?). We sent each other gifts on birthdays, sent a few letters and post cards in the mail, and we even arranged a three way call between us and his family in Taiwan. This involved three time zones. Sometimes our phone conversations were a Chinese language lesson. I also taught him a few things in Romanian, mostly terms of affection, of course. And of course, as I mentioned earlier, the walk we took along a body of water - albeit different bodies of water.
6. Others
People generally didn't understand our relationship. People didn't know what we were like together, some were skeptical of our relationship (including my dad and Rex's mentor). Many people thought we had met online. Friends or roommates would make fun of me if I told them something Rex did that I thought was very sweet. Some people would just ask me if I wanted to marry him, and I was definitely still in the stage that I really didn't know yet. It was a process that we were working through. I found two people I could talk with about our relationship, my sisters Laura and Ginnie. They didn't make fun of me, they helped me think about what was healthy, what was not. They let me confide in them, etc. Honestly, because of being gone for so long and friends in the US feeling distant and friends in Romania not feeling close enough to be confidants, I ended up confiding in Rex more and more.
Not getting to hug or hold hands was especially hard as well. I'll be honest, there were several times I dreamed that Rex was right there in the room with me, he was so close, but I still couldn't hug him or hold his hand.
I should also mention that not knowing when I would return was very hard. It became especially hard when I realized the funds I had would last longer than the six months I had originally estimated and I could stay closer to nine months. I was torn. Should I work in Romania longer, should I return to Rex like I so badly wanted to do? When I told Rex my dilemma, he reassured me repeatedly with the words, "Rachy, I'm here for you. I'm waiting for you. I'm not going anywhere." I think he already knew he wanted to marry me.
That was my first glimpse of the vows he said on our wedding day, but they were comforting words, words I needed to hear at the time.
This sums up my description of most of the challenges we faced in a long distance relationship. I hope eventually to write about some of the benefits involved as well as the unique aspects of coming home at the end of my time in Romania.
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