Hello! Welcome back to the blog! I have been inspired to pick this back up again by my sister, www.sophoolery.wix.com, and Indy Blue, whoisindyblue.com. If you don't know who either of those people are, look them up. You won't be disappointed.
So what wisdom am I going to dispense on here today? I started my senior year and things are going okay. I have an internship that pays very little so if you want to donate to the Lex Foundation for (my own) Better Living, let me know. One of my professors has this brilliant lesson plan where we write reflections on five or six essays every week and then choose one topic to do a "deep dive" essay on. It is so much. Plus obviously writing for my internship and thesis meetings. You can't blame me for having this on the back burner for a while!
Okay, maybe you can since technically it's been there since March. Whatever, I'm back now.
The lesson that I have been learning this past couple of months since school started is that life is so stressful and not everyone copes the same way that I do.
Shocking, I know.
My boyfriend lives and works in New Jersey. I go to school and live in New York City. Maybe that doesn't seem like much, but it's not easy either. You can imagine the pain I'm in hearing about the night my best friend spent with her boyfriend and knowing that I'll get maybe two days with my boyfriend this week if I'm lucky.
My boyfriend recently graduated college (last December) and has been working a full-time job since then. And as you all know, I am a full-time student. So we don't have the luxury of having dinner to catch up mid-week. Due to both our schedules and that it is at least an hour commute. That has introduced a new strain on our relationship.
You see, I am a very physical person. Not in that way, mom and dad, keep reading. In the sense that when I'm physically away from a person I start to doubt the relationship. My love language is physical touch. I love cuddling, holding hands, kissing, playing with hair, rubbing backs, all that stuff. So when I can't do that stuff, I don't know how to show my love and I often don't feel loved.
My boyfriend is not like that. I don't know what his love language is, I have not been successful in bullying him into taking the quiz (yet). But I know it's not physical touch and I'm pretty sure it's not quality time because this man values his alone time. Yes, that's right. My boyfriend cherishes the time that he gets to be by himself doing whatever he wants without the existence of another person. It is as torturous for me as it sounds.
The number of breakdowns I have had this year because Tony asked that he have half of Saturday to spend on his own before I take the train to monopolize the rest of his weekend. I can not understand this concept at all. It sent me spiraling multiple times and inspired multiple crying sessions where he had to reassure me he did love me and that he was not mad at me or thinking about how to break up with me. It wasn't that dramatic, but it felt like it.
We have different love languages. The way he shows his love is not the way I show it so we didn't recognize what the other was doing. It posed a pretty serious problem in our relationship. It took actual talking and listening for us to get past. Something that I, for one, was not used to. I'm used to yelling and screaming and accusing. Not him talking to me calmly or asking questions to better understand what I wanted. So when I would start getting emotional and on the verge of cussing him out, he would just look at me and say, "It doesn't have to be like this. You don't have to get so worked up. We can talk calmly and come up with a solution without yelling."
And I thought that was insane. I didn't know how to have a conversation without getting worked up and losing my chill. But I'm learning so I guess that's another lesson. I can recognize now when I'm getting emotional and on the verge of losing my cool. I can say that I need a minute to think before I respond instead of just reacting. That has been a hard lesson for me. I still mess up sometimes too. I send a passive-aggressive text or ignore him because I'm not getting my way. But I don't yell anymore so that's a start.
I'm still learning how to recognize the ways my boyfriend shows his love for me instead of expecting him to want to spend every available minute in my presence. But at least now I can explain why I'm being irritable instead of just telling him to leave me alone and ignoring his texts for hours.
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