It's been about two months since I've been back. Time is more than flying by. Work takes up all of my week with long days and 3-4 hours of commuting. I have about enough time at home to shower and eat before reading and going to bed. I'm not going to lie, it's a tough schedule, but it's doable. My body is adusting to waking up a 5:15am every day.

While I say the commute is not so tough, any hardships about it are made very clear when Kay is gone. It's not that he's always traveling for work. In fact, he has been gone only around 50% of the time. But when he is gone, it feels like 100% of the time. I miss him immensely. It doesn't get easier the longer or more often he goes. Each week we spend together, I just want him stronger.

On my own, I am really living by myself for the first time ever. When he's gone, there are no roommates to talk to. My only roommate is married and still in Ohio.

I can't express my disgust for long distance. Our intimacy is disturbed and our communication interrupted. I'm heartbroken when his jobs are delayed and he's kept longer. I should even expect the delays by now, but they crush me every time.

Even with friends here, I feel so alone without him. I hate to say that I am dependent on him, but I think I am. When he's here, we spend ALL our time together. When he's gone there's just this gaping hole in my social structure. I could fill it with new friends if I go out and meet people, but then I'd be unbalanced when he was back. I would never have time for both, and I couldn't expect him to just click with whoever I found to hang out with. He's shy enough as it is.

Ahh, so even trying to reach people from back home last weekend, I felt entirely disconnected. It's not that I tried to contact everyone I know, because I didn't, but the family I tried to skype and the friends I tried to im either left or disappeared. Compounded with being emotional from Kay being gone so long, I just felt like I failed. That there was this barrier of communication between the atlanic and I could not breach it.

I know Olivia and Dan have a baby now and that this changes everything. It's good and bad. Max is adorable, but I don't really need to wait for him to wake up from his nap so I can skype with Olivia. We only talked 3 minutes before he started screaming and she hung up, saying she'd try and call again later. She didn't.

That's the thing about US communication. I left, so I have to do the communicating. Or at least that's what people must figure. Really, it's been this way most of the time I've ever left anywhere in life. If I stop calling or writing, I lose contact, and people who I thought were friends just don't care enough to bother with me. Granted, this is also a generalization. I DO have friends (best friends) who have kept in touch. And my mom never fails to email me a couple times a month. But I have noticed a sharp drop off of contact since moving here. And I get it. That's my fault for moving far away. So I have to be the one to figure out how to call, or skype or send emails. If I want to stay in contact, I must do it myself because nobody is going to put the time or money in to call and see how I'm doing. Most of the time, I'm completely fine with this because the person I want to hear from most is next to me. And Kay really does do a wonderful job staying in touch while he's gone. He sends emails morning, night and sometimes noon, writes texts, pings, skypes me and calls me when he can't reach me any other way. Did I mention he writes postcards too? Even with all the digital communication, he says the written word is everlasting. *sigh* But in the moments he's not there, all the gaping holes in my other social ties becomes so obvious.

I'm not as popular as I was a few yets ago. I used to have two groups of friends to hang out with every night, 15 plans a week and too many people to keep up with. I loved being so social. I went out, ate, drank, smoked, danced. I did everything. And it was so fun.

It's not that I can say I really "miss" that life, or that I even want to go back to it, because despite my flourishing social life, it was a very stressful, lonely time. I would come home late at night often and shower, thinking about how completely alone I was, rocking myself, despite all the people I just saw. There was no Kay.

It feels so good to have him. So good. I don't want to imagine life without him. I don't want to lose him. I don't want to have to start over and try to fathom life beyond him.

Maybe that sounds terrible. Maybe it is lame. But I'm in love dammit!

Even while writing this, I found out he's been delayed yet again. It upsets him, and I can hear it in his voice on the phone. It's bad when both of us get upset. I'm ready to break down. He's gone 3 weeks, and then I don't even know if I'll see him before he's gone 3 weeks again. A little while later and it's Christmas time, and he can't come to Columbus for Christmas with me. It's heartbreaking. I still want to visit and see my friends and family and loved ones. They are all important to me. But his work isn't really helping us out right now. Normally people at least get Christmas off, especially in Switzerland!

And people at home... having babies and getting engaged. Ok, nobody's actually gotten engaged yet... but apparently two of my siblings are thinking about it. I remember my reaction to Betsy's engagement. My immediate reaction was pure joy and excitement and I was really excited for her. But about a minute later it sunk in and I was in tears. I was sad she was leaving me all alone. And now with news of possible *pending engagements, I find myself feeling strange. I think it might be jealousy. Maybe I'm jealous that loved ones are getting married and I'm still worried nobody will think I'm worth marrying. I know Kay's response to this was that technically he suggested we think about getting married, but that was last resort thinking and I know he wasn't really wanting to get married right now. I'm just not at that point in my life yet. I think I want to be on some level... or at least I want everyone else to stay single with me as long as I am. Then we can all have a big hooplah wedding together. Yeah, that sounds childish.

Anyway, I really need to stop thinking about marriage since it's not in the cards. I need to stop thinking about how sad I am that Kay is gone. What I REALLY need to do right now is go to bed since it's late and I have to get up in 8 hours. BAH humbug. I really need my sleep these days. I don't like getting less than 8 even though it's usually a reality. But when you don't get home until 8pm... it's fucking hard to go to bed at 10pm. At least I get to reward myself by getting up "late" at 6am all this week. *sigh*

Alright, that's it for now. I've complained enough to last some while more! Man.. what a vent journal this thing is.