There was a big part of me that was hoping that this month wouldn’t have decided to give me an entirely new set of lessons to learn, but that was apparently wishful thinking. It’s been a mixture of both good and bad, and while I could do without the bad, it’s been an important aspect to experience. Having a relationship with a partner at sea is complicated.
I would say that it’s made the connection Lucas and I have just that little bit (or a lot, despite the setbacks) stronger.
So, let me jump into the things I’ve learned over this past month.
Even two months in, people still have a lot to say.
This wouldn’t be so bad if the things people had to say weren’t so negative all the time. There’s a part of me that questions whether they believe that what they’re saying is helpful or useful in any way, or if it’s just to the point where they’re saying it just to be mean. It’s a very confusing situation and, unfortunately, has led to me to not talking about what I’m going through in most of my social circles. To spare myself, I usually wait for people to come to me and ask how things are.
One of the things that I wasn’t expecting was the fact I would need to defend this lifestyle more than being in a long distance relationship. There’s something about being a seafarer that doesn’t seem to translate well for others and has cast a lot of unnceccesary and unexpected judgement over the past two months.
Finding a place to fit in is still much harder than I thought.
After more than two years, I finally found a Facebook group that would let me in. I was delighted to finally find myself amongst people who could understand, only to quickly realize that I still don’t fit. While it’s a group for “wives” and I’m regretfully still not at “wife status,” I didn’t think that it would matter too much. In that respect, it doesn’t. However, the idea of being long distance while also with someone in this career path doesn’t click.
Despite the fact that the merchant mariner career essentially requires long distances at regular intervals, the idea of what I call “long distance on long distance” is a concept that is entirely far too foreign for people to understand.
I don’t know that I’ll ever find a place I truly fit in. So, for now, this is where I stay.
Trying to maintain balance is hard.
Every time I felt that Lucas and I had a handle on things, something would come up to completely upend every bit of progress that we made. There was one specific instance where we were putting blame on each other, only to finally come together and realize that we weren’t the issue at all. The issue was entirely on a third party that, whether it was the intention or not, was driving us apart in ways that we weren’t even expecting.
It took us nearly two weeks to make that realization.
It brings me back to one of my previous posts on tips for making long distance relationships work. It gets to be difficult trying to remind ourselves that we’re working with each other and not against. We’re very much working with a still relatively new scenario where emotions can run high and very quickly. Things can turn volatile really fast, especially because we have to rely so heavily on each other to figure things out. Not many people understand the realities of our situation, so we’ve had to adjust how we handle situations. It’s not easy, but we make it work.
The internet likes to cut out at the worst possible moments.
Nothing is worse than being in the middle of an extremely important conversation only for there to be complete radio silence on the other end. It is terrifying to not know what’s happening on an ordinary day; it’s even worse when a crucial conversation topic comes up.
This was also something that did not help in our previous situation. In between trying to work through an extremely difficult situation, the internet just completely disappeared, leaving a lot of very misunderstood comments out in the open and even more left unsaid. It’s almost worse when the silence is taken completely out of your control because there’s no chance to recover in the way that you want.
If there’s one thing I want to do on this blog, it’s to keep things transparent. I can honestly say that with the previous situation, I had no idea where our relationship was going. Just due to the nature of the conversation and the current hurricane that was ripping through the Atlantic, I had a feeling the internet was going to lose connection. It did precisely that, as usual, at the worst possible moment.
At this point, there were only two options – write out what I wanted to say next or move forward. I did a little bit of both.
Change is inevitable, and it can be scary and exciting at the same time.
The number of times I’ve been startled by the changes in Lucas over the past few months has been growing daily. At first, it was his newfound confidence and his joy of experiencing the world entirely on his own for the first time. The next thing, which isn’t really new because I was fully aware of it already, was realizing just how knowledgeable about this field he is. After that was the first phone conversation we had in a month, exceptionally short and confusing because Lucas’s accent had changed completely. Then finally, recently, I received my first photos of Lucas in weeks, only to see a completely different person looking back at me.
It was to be expected, and while I was fully aware there would be changes, to see it seemingly all at once was jarring. From going to video calls every day and then absolutely none at all and to only receive photos every so often, it was still a lot.
I cried.
It was probably more than I should have, but it was unexpected.
We had made initial plans for me to go out to see him where he was, but I was struggling with making the timeline work. Even when I did figure it out, it was decided it was best to hold off just because it was a very rapid-fire 24-hour situation I was working with, and Lucas was worried about me traveling too much on my own. It would have been manageable, and I personally found it worth it, but I didn’t want to stress him out with me driving so much.
Still, I had my photos. It was hard not to fall in love all over again for what felt like the millionth time in our relationship. This was still my person – just a little different than I remembered.
Expect the unexpected.
There are a lot of uncertainties that come up and far more than I would care to admit. However, this wasn’t and isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Early on, I learned just how quickly ports can change and how contracts (I don’t even necessarily know if they’re contracts, but for now this is how I’ll refer to them) can be canceled at a moment’s notice. The direction the ship goes is both linear, but not at all. It makes my head spin sometimes when I think the ship is going one way only to find out something has changed along the way.
Luckily, this hasn’t played out in a way that hasn’t been helpful over the past two months. While we haven’t been close enough to meet up just yet – time constraints and distance being a major factor – we have been in the same timezone for nearly half of this experience so far. This has been a major blessing, and it has been nice going to sleep at the same time and working practically the same hours. There’s a “normal” to our very much not-so-normal, and it’s done wonders for our relationships in small ways.
And maybe, just maybe, a little moment of unexpected might go exactly to plan.
We’re only two months into this experience so the journey is still only beginning. It has most definitely been a learning curve, but it’s one that’s been interesting to figure out. I’m curious to see what the next month will bring; I just hope it’s a lot less dramatic.
Until next time.
With love from abroad,
Cat
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