Long Distance Love

Where did we leave off? Ah…

Tim’s graduation came and went and we grew closer with every summer day. But a dark cloud loomed over us. Come fall, he would leave for college in Indiana. It had taken so long to get our relationship off the ground and now we would be separated by hundreds of miles. It just didn’t seem fair.

My senior year started on a Monday and Tim was scheduled to leave on Tuesday. I skipped half of that first day, with permission, and we spent it together. All too soon the moment we’d been dreading for months was upon us. We stood in the driveway clinging to each other. I would’ve given anything in that moment if the world would just stop spinning, if the night never ended, if my mom would stop blinking that cursed porch light! (The universal signal for “date’s over, get in the house.”)

We stretched the time as far as we could with kisses, tears, and embraces. I knew that it was going to be physically painful to unwrap my arms from his shoulders and let him drive away. I stood on the porch and watched his break lights, tapped three times for “I love you,” until they faded out of view. I had no idea how we would make through an entire year apart. How would he be affected by college life, being away from home and the freedom that came with it? What would a long-distance love really be like on a daily basis?

Hard. Frustrating. Depressing. That’s how it really was. Every day presented a new challenge. We would talk on the phone two or three times a week (depending on how horrible the long distance bill had been the month prior). And while it was always good to hear his voice, it was the other voices I began hearing that caused problems. He’d tuck away into a closet to drown out the noise of music and laughter in the dorm room.

“What’s all the noise?” I asked.

“Just a bunch a people hanging out.”

“Ok. Who all’s there?” pressing…pressing…

“I don’t know…Jay (Tim’s roommate) Brett, Molly, Talitha, Trudy, maybe a few more.” He replied nonchalantly. “I’m not getting very much studying done.”

“Oh.” Cringe.

No, these are not the girl’s actual names. Close renderings (protecting the innocent and all.) But for our story’s sake, those were the names that were receiving regular mentions in our conversations. Names that haunted me in my sleep. These were college girls. I was just a lowly high-schooler. Yes, I know it was only the difference of one year but let’s be real…in the mind of a newly independent 18 year old guy, I might as well have been in diapers and still sucking a pacifier. I wasn’t sure how I could compete but I was determined to try.

I wrote to him pretty much every day -still have the box stuffed with letters to prove it. And he faithfully wrote back. But even in his writing I could sense that he was unsettled and restless. He seemed to be wandering into that first year college abyss of “finding myself” which made no sense to me because I knew exactly who he was: Tim Sexton -boyfriend and future husband of Amie Harrington. Simple. No searching required and certainly no sowing of wild oats. But my pragmatism wasn’t going to be enough for him. And long about November things took a nasty turn.