Lately I've been browsing a long distance relationship forum. There is always perspective to be gained from others' relationships, and I admit that seeing the obstacles that others have to overcome (that make my own seem so measly) comforts me in a way. At least he is not being deployed; at least we have already met and our families know about each other; at least there isn't an ocean and a staggering time difference between us. The fact that my husband is actually the perfect person for me and we don't have any issues aside from, you know, all those miles is just icing on the cake (barf bags to your left. Sorry.)

I have it so easy. Twelve hundred miles (a good chunk of which is beautiful landscape) and one international border with only mildly grumpy border guards is "all" that separates me from Danny. It helps that our entire relationship has been "in person" and that we spent the majority of our relationship "close distance" as they say. It helps even more than we've always been able to schedule visits with minimal fuss. And perhaps most importantly of all, there has always been an end date to it all. (The fact that there is now literally a Last Day in Canada - November 30th - is overwhelming to me in the best of ways.) I can't imagine trekking forward with an LDR with no definitive end to it. I have too many plans for my life, too many things I want to do with him.

The weekends are the hardest time for me. Two days of nothing sounds blissful when I'm in the middle of a week of any rotation and I'm tired and smelly and just want to read or cook a real dinner or go out with some friends. But when the weekend hits, I find myself aimless, drifting and lonely. There are certainly things that I can (and probably should) do. But more times than not, I leave those things undone and just kind of float through the hours doing a bit of this and a bit of that just to pass the time. Frankly, it's pathetic.

Many relationships are forced to become long distance with vet school. All but a scant few ended at one point or another. There is such a negative stigma attached to LDR, and while I can understand why it exists, I can't understand why anyone lets that stigma govern their choices. The distance has been tough, even tougher this year than the last and moreso than I expected for fourth year. But our relationship has gained a dynamic that I didn't know was possible, grown and matured entirely for the better. If you can survive the distance, it's not such a bad thing to have been through.