long distance relationship...not for the faint of heart

It seems that December especially poses a challenge for me and my boyfriend, who live 150 miles and one international border apart. We've been doing it for 3+ years now so the whole travelling thing, the whole doing-without-your-partner-at-important-events thing, the whole only-seeing-each-other-on-weekends thing, is pretty routine by now. And generally I try to stay upbeat and cheerful, but right now I gotta tellya, December sucks.

Usually it's just the holidays that scramble things up. My daughter's birthday is in December, and so is Hanukkah, and so is Christmas. The thing that makes the holidays complicated isn't that classic couple thing of Whose family will we spend them with, because we never spend the holidays together. He goes "home" to be with his family, and I stay home to be with mine. His diabetic cat requires someone to visit with her and administer medication twice every day, and his only friend who he trusts to do that also spends the holiday with his family, and hasn't always been around at Christmas. So even though my boyfriend's holiday tradition and mine don't conflict, circumstances generally prevent us from being together anyway.

This year, we've had the added bonus of the nasty blast of winter that I'm experiencing, which made me depressed and grumpy, threw me off my game I guess, and also made me afraid to drive my car. So I missed my weekend to visit him last week. And now I hear that his cat-caregiver friend's wife has a family emergency that has taken them out of town, which means he likely will miss his weekend this week. Then it's Hanukkah with his family, then Christmas with mine.

So baby, I guess I'll see you at New Years.