Turning three, a Long Distance Anniversary!

When you turn three and you are continents apart, you turn back and realize you are right where you wanted to be as a couple, or maybe even ahead!

When suddenly your daily lifestyle turns from “married” to “single”, life abruptly goes into a limbo, sending you scrambling for ways to fill the emptiness.

When you can’t wake up next to each other every day, you text sweet nothings instead and pelt each other with ugly morning selfies! When you’re in bed alone, tossing ‘cause you just can’t seem to get comfortable, you realize that you are missing those annoying snores that had become your lullaby.(Time to rake out that recording of his snores on your phone :P)

When you’re time zones apart and your days and nights are flipped, you live each day twice! When you can’t wait up for each other after work to pour out all your stories, you chronicle them instead and fit them into long phone conversations and random hangout sessions. When you're at the mercy of technology to keep you connected, you hope those pixels better be capturing every inch of him well enough that you don't miss even a small blemish!

When you're spending most of your holidays apart, wherever you go, you leave behind little promises to return with each other. When the sight of every cozy couple makes you squirm inside 'cause you are painfully aware of the void you feel, you grit your teeth and suck it up because the thought of what the future could hold, makes this all worthwhile.

When the timeline of your life is running in reverse, you’ve been given a second chance. From best friends to marriage and then marriage to Long Distance; It’s another chance at courtship, to fall head over heels in love all over again!

When you no longer have the weekend multiplex dates to look forward to, you scour the internet for the perfect “Long-Distance-Movie-Night” app. And when you don’t have to share a popcorn tub or call dibs on the last piece of Nachos, you order delivery food for each other, point it at the small video chat window on the screen and munch it by yourself. When you’re celebrating most of the milestones in your life apart, you look back to the special ones you’ve had together for comfort and vow to make up for the lost ones in style!

When every day without him feels the same, you categorize all your days into three types:

Days that go by trying to fill the empty spaces,

Days that you count in between visits,

Days that you are actually together, you can see each other and touch each other.

When you have to fly across oceans to see each other, airports become special - sometimes that friend who brings us together again and sometimes the enemy that bears witness to our painful goodbyes. When there are long periods of separation between you, every brief meet becomes special; You treasure every moment with each other like an unexpected gift! And when you are with each other again, you realize distance not only makes the heart grow fonder, it also makes you wilder and more carefree! ;)

Even though you wouldn’t wish a long distance relationship on anyone, you embrace it happily, because it is the most amazing thing that could have happened to your relationship. And moreover, when you're treading a path less taken, you just drudge along determined to pave one yourself; hoping one day you'll have a hell of a story to narrate to your kids!

Two Already!

Well, this one zoomed by real fast. It's been two full earthly years! That's a giant step further into becoming a "husband" and a "wife" from "you" and "I". Enough time for the truth, the revelation of what we've really gotten ourselves into, to hit us!

Two years is just about enough to accept that, most of what is said about marriages is really true. Enough to upend a longingly uncomplicated single life and dissolve into the tousles of marriage. Enough time to have all those inevitable couple fights - "You dropped a wet towel on the bed", "This argument is getting one-sided", "You made me wait too long", "Why am I telling this to you like the nth time", "I don't get my me-time anymore" and the like! 

But it is not nearly enough time, to make you forget that everyone else is a rule and you're the exception. 

The sheepish expression on your face when it dawns on you that you pulled a "wet towel" yet again, magically straightens my disapproving brows and then that's that(It's another thing that we launch into a pillow fight a minute later! ). It takes me a couple of moments of being left alone to see the unfairness of an argument (really, just a couple of moments, but I know they must seem wretchedly long to you!) . But when I do make my way back to you with a more sensible mind and an even sillier heart, you soften; and that's all it takes to bury the thing. That surge of anger rising as I restlessly scan the incoming vehicles to spot you, is duly forgotten when a mutual favorite number pops up on the local radio and we hum along together, the bliss of the music and lyrics consuming us. The acceptance that I really have a memory the size of a pea, helps you summon the patience to explain that important thing to me yet again and pray, hope that I really get it this time. And well, we both being slightly(or mostly? That's a debate for another day!) introverted individuals, need constant self time to recharge ourselves. And when one of us is feeling deprived of it, a sympathetic nod is all that is needed to remind us that we totally dig each other!

More importantly, two years is just about enough to get some dark truths out of the closet. Enough to get you to confess that between the two of us, you're the one more terrified of canines. And the sight of one, makes you wanna hold me tight, not to protect me; rather, to reassure yourself! Enough to make me concede that more often than not, I mix up opinions and facts and actually assert myself with such conviction as to make you think twice :P 

Yet, it is not nearly enough time to completely understand each other's daily shenanigans. Like why I love flopping on the wrong end of the bed at the end of a tedious day. If truth be told, staring at a slightly different patch of the ceiling somehow gives me the feeling that not everything in life is the same old, boring routine(Weird, I know!). And of course, it's my way of testing how long you can keep your OCD at bay, before promptly nudging me to my end of the bed, so that you can have "Your Spot"! :P And by Jove, I will never quite understand why your idea of cleaning up the wardrobe means emptying the contents onto the floor and arranging them in laboriously thought out categories while scribbling away on your notepad for the rest of the day! Well of course, we both know how it ends. At the end of the day, you hurriedly put them back in after I stare you down, exasperated! :O

Above all, two years may be insufficient to know each other inside out, but ample enough to look inside each other and discern the darkest fears and most cherished desires. It was enough for us to find it in ourselves to treasure each other's dreams like our own and find true happiness in helping each other chase them. Those very dreams may take over our life for the coming few years and we may not get enough of each other. But I know, as I look back at this day every year, it will invariably feel like a lifetime of "us" may still not be enough.

On Turning One

We turn one today :) Well, mother earth has dutifully brought us back precisely to where we stood a year ago, the same point around the centre of the world as she knows. While the 365-day odyssey must’ve been so lonesome for her, I’m lucky we had each other for company. Believe me on this, no matter how much I crib about the contrasts of our dreamy Pisces and Idealist Virgo match, at times I silently thank the Universe for finding me you, bestowing upon me a companionship that could make a year long journey seem like a day.

The last time we were here, surrounded by our loved ones, yet only aware of each other, we were waiting for that destined moment to become “we” from “you and I”. Today, “we” have come so far from the “we” that we were back then. A year spent on learning and unlearning, making and unmaking us.

A year, of me getting into that thick head of yours and re-programming a few 0’s and 1’s with 1/4’s and 1/2’s and 3/4’s here and there. A year of you, breaking into the little bubble around me, and replacing a few mystical things and magical happenings with real people and solid plans.

A year, of your culinary experiments and my literary endeavours.

A year, for getting used to waking up to blaring fast beat music in the mornings, letting that new album that you just won’t stop looping around, grow on me; while you watch me sift through my playlist and replace it every so often coz I just can’t stand monotony.

A year of watching you eagerly wait for Rahman’s next album, the launch of the next awesome gadget, or the telecast of that new series you’re hooked onto, like a child longingly waiting for his new pair of shoes; While I lapse into episodes of thoughtfulness when the writer’s voice inside my head just won't shut up, or jump up and down in childlike glee when you actually buy me a new pair of shoes :P . A year of learning to be able to appreciate xkcd jokes; and of you being able to tell a peep-toe from a slip-on. A year of those late night bout of giggles triggered by your occasional breakthrough in coming up with some really good wisecracks, or my rare(read NEVER) moments of stupidity.

A year for getting to know each other’s wonderful idiosyncrasies and realizing that those are what makes us each other’s. One more year will pass, and we’ll stand here again, contemplating another year gone by. Our first milestone was about closing in the gaps in our relationship, I hope the next one holds so much more.