Oh, Oh Telephone Line, Give Me Some Time, I'm Living in Twilight

(This post started as a comment over at Gekko's place, then sort of grow'd like Topsy, so I decided it was a post unto itself.)

Since we only get to make the sex occasionally (due to the 1663.29 miles -- but who's counting? -- between us), Dood and I mostly do nothing BUT talk. And talk, and talk, and talk. And no, it's not all phone sex and dirty giggles late into the night -- there is that, but there have also been the quotidian moments of doing laundry, grocery shopping, taking a smoking break, and then some truly hard, painful, both-of-us-crying moments. There have also been the "I have to hang up the phone RIGHT NOW because if I stay on I will say something terrible that I don't mean and will regret later," moments.

See -- we made a commitment from the very beginning to total honesty.

First of all, we were just goofing around (what are the chances we'll actually really meet, I mean, you're in New Orleans and I'm in New York, right?) and felt we had absolutely nothing to lose by total nakedness, and then second, after the gooshy feelings started creeping in, we both recognized that the only way to sustain any kind of relationship is to be completely honest, even if it totally sucks at the moment.

Even if I'm afraid I'm revealing some aspect of my personality that will suddenly turn off the "love" switch*, it's out there for him to look at, and I'm mostly certain he's not looking at it and making a list of reasons to reject me, and same goes for me. (*part of me still thinks this can happen.)

I won't lie, this has been really hard. My inclination is to not talk about what I think, feel, and want. My inclination, sometimes, is still to shut down a la "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." Because I am not verbally adept and I don't like confrontation (think "roll up in corner with arms over head"), I am TERRIBLE at arguing my positions. If I could rebut an argument by WRITING things down, I'd do it. If only it were so.

Every now and then, in the midst of a discussion, some double-edged Hattori Hanso words will come flying out of my mouth, drawing blood, surprising both of us.

"Your words cut me," he said, and the look in his eyes was:  First Tiny Heartbreak.  Which, for the record, made us even-steven that night.

And now there've been some changes to the Dood's life, which have curtailed our previous talk time. I am severely displeased by this -- no, actually, for a week or so, I acted like a junkie in withdrawal, but I reminded myself (thanks to zen for this) that I can accept it or not accept it, but it doesn't change the situation.  I still don't get any more talk time, so won't it be easier for me to just accept it and get on with things?

Acceptance is just easier.  And I do mean acceptance, not resignation.  As Cheri says, acceptance happens with your head up, resignation happens with your head down.  What this means is that I'm here, and he's there, and while he goes about his bidness, I just have to go about my bidness.  If he's in the middle of watching a movie that runs past the time I go to bed (I'm back to a somewhat normal bedtime again, those fabulous rangy calls that lasted 'til 3am had to stop sometime), then I just have to go about my going to bed, and we'll talk another time.

And so it goes...there is a longer-term goal in all of this, but since I've spent the last decade of my life training to not be "attached to outcomes," I also have to look ruthlessly at the possibility that it just might not happen. Life has a funny way of happening, throwing down obstacles that make you detour and end up somewhere else. Anything could happen, and might. I have to accept that possibility, as much as I really, reeeeeally, want that thing to happen.

Anyway, I only have to wait until my next birthday, and that's just 10 short months away, which means that it's less than a year away, and for some reason, that length of time seems completely manageable and suddenly I'm much more cheerful about it.