Tag: longdistancerelationship

S: Holiday Presence

Well, it’s the holidays again and as you all know, it’s a tough time for us, but more widely it’s a tough time for families of the incarcerated. Now, with a global pandemic, we can’t even go visit our loved ones at the facilities. To make it even worse, GTL and the DOC are cancelling video visits for many people, on Christmas. It’s truly tragic, especially for those people in prison who have spent well enough time in there and can come out and be a successful member of society; like my Q.

Sigh. Only time will tell if and when he will be released. But until that time, I like to think about the ring of presence we have built around us.

This Christmas, I’m surprising him with a series of letters dedicated to reminding him just how much can be done with creating our presence with each other no matter how far away we are. With a big restriction on mail, pictures and merchandise we can send to the prison. So I used a lot of my words and limited black and white copies of letters he can receive from me.

He’s gotten 2 out of 7 of them and has been absolutely elated to read the words and feel the love I put into them. We just had a conversation about how amazing it is to be able to love as hard as we want, because we were made for each-other and match each-others souls.

I’m so so grateful.

Happy holidays to all.

-S

0

S: So Much for Physical Touch

Tough October indeed. Between my own personal life and how busy work has been for me… how we’ve seen no strides in our work for criminal justice reform for all, and no strides in Q’s personal paperwork for him to get out of prison… how we’ve been having small moments of miscommunicating… I miss him.

It’s been over 7 months since I’ve gotten to hold his hand. Just as long as the amount of time I had with him. I think about the pandemic and how some people have basically been trapped with their loved ones, their spouses, their other halves. But the community of prison significant others… we’ve gotten the complete opposite. The pandemic has taken what limited amount of time we got to spend hugging our men, holding their hand. Getting to be face to face and watching each other move. Getting to take each other in…. smell each other’s breaths and taste each other’s lips. Laugh together and have a snack together. Just being able to place one hand on his cheek and whisper, I love you.

It’s easy to take for granted having the love of your life next to you. It’s also easy to take for granted having one at all. Hold them close and tell them you love them today, if you can. And if you can’t, pray for them and thank God you have them in your life.

– S

0

S: “Keep Being Amazing.”

I started this entry with this same headline almost a year ago, with a statement that says: “This is what he says to me, almost every morning before we get off the phone.” It’s something that’s been constant throughout our relationship.

‘Keep being amazing’ has been somewhat of a mantra of ours that means so much. It basically says – I’m proud of you, and what you do and what you give to the world is important. Go out there and be you with no apologies and no fear. Go out there and be your whole self and know that it’s enough.

The first time he said it to me was before we were what we are and when we just reconnected. He would see me go off to work knowing how bogged down I was. Managing my household and mothering my son and doing hula hoop shows. Making other people happy. He recognized how important it was for me to feel like I ‘HAD IT.’ That someone appreciated everything I was doing and all that I am. Those 3 simple words have always meant everything to me. Especially in the morning before having to start my day. It’s like he’s wrapped me in love and I can better give to others. Wrapped me in confidence and fearlessness, really just allowing myself to believe in MYSELF sooner and easier. It means the world to me to have that mindful energy toward making my day better. And hearing his voice perk up before the end of a phone call, saying ‘I love you, keep being amazing,’ is everything.

Since Q started doing print-based college courses, I’ve found myself saying it to him more often. His main focus has always been education. Throughout his time in prison, he has read textbooks freely, taking notes and learning science and psychology; learning tai chi and meditation and really immersing himself in all things books. Now he has the chance to prove it to the world and that’s all he wants to do. By getting a degree. I’m so so proud of him. I always have been. From writing all of these thought pieces about race and politics on his site BrillianceBehindBars.com, to always dedicating himself to tai chi and his mental and physical health, I’m just so proud. I love this man and everything he is.

– S

0

S: My Quarantine Birthday

Never did I think I’d also somehow have a quarantine birthday, but alas, here we are.

It’s still very much the ‘pandemic times’ right now so we didn’t get to see eachother in person. But luckily I got to start the day off with a video visit with him. Coffee time, which was beautiful.

A couple days prior to that, I received a package in the mail addressed to me. I knew what it was because he had spoiled the surprise of what he’d gotten me for my birthday, but I didn’t know what it looked like. I unwrapped the box and pulled it out, and it’s a beautiful little bonsai tree. An outdoor juniper bonsai. I love that he listens. He knows how much I love plants and the joy they bring to me.

He and I named him together. Going back and forth. Once told him that it seemed male, we started talking about boy names and couldn’t land on one. I told him that the tree was spikey, but soft and gentle. Small but mighty. He thought about it for a while and said – ‘what about Sonic? Like the hedgehog, who shares those same qualities.’ It was perfect. We shared an equal like for the movie, and both enjoyed the video game as kids. ‘Sonic the Bonsai’ I said.

I also got a beautiful handmade card from him. Another surprise. I waited to open it until my birthday. He had written a sweet little diddy, a birthday poem if you will. It made me smile…

“July 21st, a very special birth,
heaven opened up and an angel grazed the earth,

Oh, S. Dae!
special in every S. way,
the greatest of the greatest
birthday of birthdays.

All hail the Queen,
the only reason I’m a King,
and I’ve been enamored since the first “whatchu mean!?” 🙂

To my Queen, to my goddess
whom I love, respect, trust and adore,

Happy Birthday, my Lady and Love,
and to you, a million more…”

The best part about the day was that he felt very present. We didn’t get to talk much on the phone that day due to the Covid cases and lockdowns going on at his facility… but he was with me all day, even though he wasn’t. He made me feel so special and fills me with so much joy. I’m so so grateful. Happy birthday to me.

– S

0

Q: Our Force

A lot has changed within the year of S and I’s recoupling. Not with us and our interaction – more the world around us, what resides outside the bubble. A pandemic, protests, and all the chaotic conditions that accompany great change…

Yet amongst the all the volatility, S and I have found great solace in our being together, even when miles apart…

With a limited physical aspect in our relationship, S and I focus more on building on the spiritual body of us. Meditation and prayer are a major underpin we share to help strengthen us internally to be able to withstand the great need for touch…

This year has been very trying. S has undergone a lot of added pressures with the changes of her routine and having to working from home. Plus, the halting of visitation had put heavy strain on our relationship… we’ve bickered more than ever, HA! At a time earlier in our relationship, I was actually worried that we wouldn’t bicker and probably wouldn’t know how to handle it when the time came… boy was I wrong! We are both pretty opinionated, but rarely share it with people. But as with most difficulties in communication, our wanting to understand each other is very powerful – we find ourselves overcoming and becoming stronger for it.

June the 14th, was our ten month anniversary and marks a very important day, I believe. It started off with a newly found tradition of anniversary video visits, which was amazing because we haven’t seen each other in quite a while and I think that has taken its toll on us in very specific ways. But I digress. We followed that up with an hour long wholesome conversation…

But the highlight of the day was actually late at night. S and I had spoken to each other about meditations, trying to set our intentions. I meditated on the destiny of our love and all the coincidences that lead up to us sharing this time onto forever we share.

I visualize The Force that moved everything into place for us… I, myself am a believer in God, as the dispenser of cause, destiny, and justice, related that same source that has placed us together is the same source that placed the stars in the sky and throughout existence… I shared that with S and was so happy when she told me she gathered a lot out of that idea… Once again, being the big romantics we are, we found a path to some greater truth and built spiritual strength from examining the happenstance of our love…

Hopefully… knowingly, there is a lot more to come from our great respect and love for each other. We grow higher and closer everyday… I know what they mean when they say God is Love… I’m still praying and living to experience a deeper, fuller, more divine love, and with S by my side, I know its all possible…

-Q, 6/16/20

0

S: You Teach Me, and I’ll Teach You

– Doodle by Q, 1/22/20

Babe and I have spent January connecting on our childhoods. While it’s a subject we’ve built in prior years and months of our time together, it means so much more now.

We found a similar love in Pokémon. Telling stories of middle school. Playing games, trading cards. Talking about memories of our friends and family connections. We sang the theme song together at visitation; it felt like it was only the two of us.

Yeah. Us singing Pokémon together was the highlight of my day this visit was one of the best so far. I could see it… us and our forever. I could see it clearly today. And looking in your face and seeing that beautiful smile and the face of my love…

– Q, 1/21/20

We also shared our love of Parappa the Rapper. Sang some lyrics together from the game and recalled our favorite boards.

There’s something about the past that helps mend futures. While it’s long gone, it builds lifetime connection through good and bad times. Knowing your partner’s childhood – no matter how much it differs from yours – can truly create deeper understanding.

Ask your significant other – ‘Tell me something I don’t know about you from your childhood?’ Then sit back, and enjoy.

– S

0

Q+S: Contemplation of the Week

Q and I are starting a new thing for the year, Contemplation of the Week. It’s a quote or thought we find during the week, that we can document, write down, think about, and implement into our lives. For week one, we picked a quote that I happened to find on a tea bag. We decided to write about it. We may do so from time to time… and maybe post it. ❤️

WEEK ONE:

Earth laughs in flowers.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

S: “There was a point in time when he used to always call me his flower. Delicate, beautiful, pure, and joyful. His flower.

Knowing that I am his light, and one of his biggest reasons, it scared me to feel it and see it. It also filled me with purpose and care to a level that I failed to see on my own. It effortlessly fuels the way he loves me.

I know that the earth is full of them – flowers. But a lot of them only spring in the spring. They are rare, but plentiful; like the frequency of comedy. Where there is joy, there is laughter. Where there is earth, there are flowers. Flowers are joy.

Earth will always produce that beauty for as long as there is soil, as long as there is water, as long as there is sun. Flowers cannot bloom without the nurturing of what is constant and what is true. The same goes for love.”

Q: “Living and breathing, the earth is a being equipped with its own soul and character. No different from any other organism.

What does it mean for one to laugh? A joyous reflex imprinted onto the innate operations of the soul. Our laughter signifies our joy. You could say it is the only moniker of a pure elation. The earth exemplifies its joy through the vessel of flowers. If one takes the time to really contemplate the flower, they may find all the joys of the earth, for themselves.”

Q: NOT Home For the Holidays (Redux)

Prison is not the ideal place for spending the holiday season. Disgruntled inmates treat the holidays with either contempt or disregard. For the last 12 years of my incarceration, I opted for the latter. However, I feel the next few though will be different… now that I have S….

We’d been talking for only a few months. Had some face-to-face time, and solidified a higher level in our relationship. Deciding to carry on a relationship given the condition is a monumental choice; and backed by the pressures of the holiday season to “be together…” let’s just say our first holiday season couldn’t have been foreseen.

S loves to travel… which for a slightly over-protective individual like myself, being unable to be “there” for her, is very troubling… but life persists…

Thanksgiving, S travelled to her mother’s house: a nice driving distance away from home. We try our best to stay connected via phone, especially when she’s traveling. Even though it doesn’t necessarily change the way we communicate for the majority, its like I can feel when she’s not home… I get the same deep sinking feeling…

Even when I know S made it to her destination, the feeling remains. The holidays is about family… and to have her around hers, yet splitting the difference on the phone with me, seems wrong. So I try to avoid it… What seems to be a vacation and a time for embracing to everyone else, is more of a time for restriction and limitation for S and I. Which is okay, because it’s real.

Sometimes, I fear that our relationship won’t be as strong because it’ll lack “real world experience.” Like its staged in a fantastic play, where negatives are often hidden in an array of flowery words unaided by presence. But when those moments arise where you can feel strain, you can’t deny that you are being tried. Strangely, that brings me a sense of relief…

Of course I can’t wait to “be with” S for the holidays. As I have told her multiple times, she IS my family. The visions of us cooking, sharing, loving, and thoroughly enjoying the season are hard, but motivating. A few more holiday seasons dot our path to one day being free together, bringing in the holidays…

Until then though, I guess there is something special to learn of our love and the holidays. We just have to remain open and receptive to the wisdom the times and the trials have to offer us in our life now, and in our future…

–Q, written 1/5/20
(Read the S version here)

0

Website Built with WordPress.com.

Up ↑