Love, Logic and Logistics

(Ramblings of a long distance love-fool)

I remember writing this once upon a time..

“…….to help myself more I thought I’ll start to calculate the extreme impossibility of seeing you again in the same way you quantify the magnitude of everything (in kilometers vs. time and money etc). A country of almost a billion people across the seas with a massive land area of three billion square meters composing of a half a million villages approximately 3,000 miles away from mine renders me an average of a million in one chances of seeing you. Not one person can justify the complexity of this statement. But then again, all these global figures are insignificant compared to the veracity of your decision”


Such is one of my many profound ramblings. While the drama of an inter-racial love affair overseas have been in fashion, the actual experience of being involved in one definitely tells a different story. Diversity indeed brings a different kind of energy in any relationship. To me, It was all about seeing a different world in one person filled with a dose of a new culture, language, adventure and possibilities that I gladly embraced in my life. Both of us were caught in an impenetrable cross-cultural bubble which somehow led us to believe that we can live for the moment until he had to proceed to his next pit stop. In view of this next chapter, the fairy-tale we both once knew has to either be ended or re-written in a new page.

My relationship now is nothing short of a case study. I would love to believe that we are somehow part of a bigger plan with an extra-ordinary destiny that any couple could experience. As I speak, I am still in this same page that sprang out from a seemingly modern-day fairy tale. I know for a fact that I will not recommend this to my children. If they can, with their sanest powers, they should try to veer away from the curse of a complicated relationship. By complicated, I mean specifically one that brings online tears and virtual loneliness but in the event that any of them end up in one, I will always start my motherly advice with the painful truth.

The whole concept of being away from the object of your affection is nothing better than watching the daily news on TV. You are there but not. You are with him (or her) but in a different time zone. Airtime in phone calls, SMS and IM are subject to invisible forms of moods and behaviors in the guise of your voices, words, pixelized video images that mostly take guesswork and analysis that fail. It is without a doubt, exhausting, expensive and uncertain. Your level of trust should be higher than any relationship given the fact that both of you cannot see what one is doing on the other side of the globe. While trust is fundamental to any relationship, its not always easy to give especially if all you have at the moment are choppy phone conversations, text messages and the memory of the last time you saw each other. For a long-distance relationship to work, I believe a couple should have one strong vision in mind and to us, it’s the goal to be together.

I can’t say that I will be ending this struggle with flying colors. While we are both trying to cross this bridge of being away from each other, the visa procedures and paperwork that come with it are not helping. We had to do more compromises than we are ready for but decided to do it anyway. If love is considered the most powerful force in the world, consular procedures should recognize this. I have come to terms with the disadvantages of my passport and with that, I know that I have yet to see the day when we can call ourselves a normal couple. I question myself why this complicated relationship is worth all the hassle and if there is one easy answer any couple could give, its just LOVE, no less. People can never quantify or question what one can do for it. In our case, we were only given a short time to physically be together and decide that its worth giving it a go. If I were to look at it in a bigger scale, we both needed the distance to validate that there’s an unwritten destiny to this. What causes this certainty is one of the few benefits only couples like us are fortunate enough to experience. While most couples in the world are trying to figure out what movie they will see next or where they would go the next weekend, we are wondering when we can actually be together again. Making a relationship work is tough per se. To be in a relationship with someone from a different race is tougher and when you add distance to the equation, it becomes hard work. I always tell myself that nothing beautiful comes easy. Take the popular case of iron put to the test fire to see its strength, I know that we will never be able to say how strong we are as a couple until we get pass all these obstacles. I have learned to see both the beauty and the reality in a long distance relationship and while I wait for the time when I can actually be in the same cross-cultural bubble we enjoyed once upon a time, I cant help but appreciate how great this experience has made our love before we can even prove it.