Drink and a snack?

Ok, some titles of these posts can't quite fit the model that we've established thus far. This is one such post!

But anyway, when we first started hanging out in January, 2008, I knew Kim was planning to work in India for a year, come that fall. I honestly had no idea what our relationship would be like at that time and as such, we agreed in February that we would just enjoy each other's company and keep hanging out as long as it felt like the right thing to do. In many ways, this "day by day" approach really helped us make sure that we never got too far ahead of ourselves with respect to expectations in the relationship.

Of course, then September came. And we were facing the fact that we really were quite attached to each other. So the idea of splitting up sounded completely awful and certainly not the right thing to do! We decided we would try the EXTREME long-distance thing and we would continue to take the relationship one day at a time, trying in earnest to be completely honest with each other as to how we were being impacted by that amount of distance. Admittedly, I was skeptical that we could continue to grow closer and closer despite the long distance! But the day finally came when she had to leave. It was September 29, 2008. And I was choking up at the airport as I waved goodbye. Interesting tidbit for those of you who follow the stock market, the Dow dropped 778 points that day. Coincidence? I think not. Kim Whittaker was leaving the country and we all felt the impact.

Luckily, for us, several things played in our favor once Kim was abroad. My phone seemed to be the ONLY one Kim could send to or receive texts from in the States, which made it much more easy to connect via phone or Skype. In fact, in the entire time Kim spent in India, we never once set up an official "phone date." Also, Skype had improved tenfold from even just a year before, making it possible even to SEE each other while we chatted as long as there was electricity in Kim's apartment. And I had plenty of frequent flier miles from my old job such that we were able to see each other every three months.

Still, there was some turbulence that we had to get through, but that story is for another time.