Love at a Distance

My heart has created a major dilemma in my life. It’s grown tired of all the one-night stands, 3-month love affairs, and long-distance suitors. My heart finally wants to find someone to love, to grow with, to laugh with, to support me, to build a life with. Yet, my heart loves to leave. My heart loves to love from a distance.

I grew up in a small town. At the age of 17, I knew I would be leaving that small town behind. My longing for the ocean and all her wonders was pulling me relentlessly away from everything I knew and everyone I loved. The move occurred 5 years later after the completion of my bachelor’s degree, yet I have never looked back.

Many ask me how it is living far from home. How can I manage to leave so easily everything and everyone I knew and loved when they have a tough time moving to a new town 20 minutes away? It’s simple, I don’t know any different. I have been loving everyone I knew at a distance for the majority of my adult life. Loving at a distance is easier. Loving at a distance is safer.

When you love at a distance, family always misses you. You never get old. Everyone always wants you around and is asking when your next visit will be. You’re everyone’s favorite person for the week or two you decide to grace them with your presence.

When you love at a distance, friends will drop plans with anyone to meet you for a drink. Stay up late on a school night because you’re in town. You’re on vacation, so they are on vacation if only for the night.

Same goes for lovers. Long distance is always fun and exciting for the few days you get to see them. Life can’t get old. You can’t get annoying when you’re always leaving. They will only miss you. That is the magic of loving and being loved at a distance.

My heart has grown accustom to this special treatment. To always feeling loved and adored. It allows it to stay wild and free. No one discusses your hearts wondering ways, you are just loved for it. Even to the point of being admired. You’re called brave. You’re revered for your ability to change. Humans aren’t good at changing, but you with your nomadic heart are a wonder at change.

My heart has always found it easier to leave, before it is left. When you’re always the one leaving, you can explain away so many lost relationships. You can dodge so many heartaches. You are not left trying to fill the hole, the new city with its new activities among new people are filling it for you.

My heart loves the newness of a place. Loves the exploring. Yet give it time. Around the ballpark of a year, my heart will find a flaw in her new beloved city. New England’s winters are unbearable. New Orleans is lacking a coastline. South Florida was too new for my old soul. Every time the solution is to leave to fall in love again somewhere new.

Here in lays the problem, how do you stay? How do you build a relationship, a life with someone when your heart loves to leave? When your heart is begging to be loved from a distance? Can someone love me, love my heart when it stays? What happens when the days get dull? When the fights get longer? When the cute little quirks become annoying habits? How do people stay then?

Can my heart find love and leave? Can it let its guard down and learn to love a New England winter? Or will it always pine for a French 75 on Magazine street? Or crave the sunshine in the Florida Keys? Can someone learn to love me and my wondering heart? Or will my heart have to learn to love an idle life?