This week, my boyfriend John is traveling in Israel to consult with startups in Tel Aviv as a part of a credit for his business school classes. We’ve been dating for just more than two-and-a-half years now and living together since last July, and his heart is the greatest complement to my own. So you could say I’m missing the dude pretty big right now.
Where I’m stubborn and impatient, he’s thoughtful and compassionate. Where he procrastinates or takes great care and time to accomplish certain tasks, I make moves forward and fast. When I don’t want to cook (which is often) he gets to work in the kitchen, but not before making sure I have a glass of wine in hand. Where I can chat up anyone and become best friends in five minutes flat, he’s more reserved, quiet, and introspective in social situations. He’s a school person and a history buff; my favorite TV channel is Bravo…
Sometimes I wonder and even feel insecure about our vast differences — in personality, in upbringings, in ways we do things and pursue goals — but then I think about how balanced and how safe and just at ease I feel when I’m with him. How he’s the only person who can calm me down in about 30 seconds when I’m upset, even the times I’m upset with him. He wants to do well by everyone and treat people with a gentle kindness, and I love that in him.
He can drive me half freaking crazy when he won’t get off TexAgs or group chat with his man-pals, but I could tell him I want to drive across the country for a book idea or open my own yoga studio and he’d back me up a thousand percent. I come up with crazy ideas all the time, and he never once has said or made me feel like I couldn’t achieve whatever new scheme I want to pursue.
His support is everything to me and my favorite quality in him. As confident as I am (most of the time) with my capabilities and path in life, I can attest that having someone else’s complete faith in you adds a whole new element of motivation, inspiration, and drive. It just lights a bigger fire knowing not only you think you can do outstanding, wonderful, important things, but someone else does, too.
I’ve been thinking about all of this in his absence this week, and, as though this isn’t already the cheesiest post ever, I’ve realized all that talk about distance and the heart growing fonder is kind of true. We haven’t spent ten days apart, I think, in all the time we’ve dated — so, while I do relish being pushed back into my autonomy this week, I can’t say I’m not looking forward to his plane’s arrival Sunday night.
I will say, however, this week has already been made a whole lot more fun and eventful than it could’ve been. My sister is in town to keep me company and drink all the wine that my normal wine-drinking buddy is missing. My heart’s feeling full, even if half of it’s in a different country.
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