So, today, I get to celebrate that I've managed to go the full four and a half hours since Andrew left without crying or falling into a fit of SADFEELS. This morning, he accepted my reasoning for needing the extra bit of day to myself, because I love spending time with him, but I'm about to go back to work in the morning, and among other things, I REALLY didn't want to have to worry about him being on the road while I was trying to work. Also, I am a natural introvert and being alone at home is NOT THE SAME as me being in one room and him being in another or being on the patio playing a game. It's not the same kind of freedom--it really isn't.
These visits are my catch-22. I miss him so much, I try to be with him as much as physically possible, but then by the end, I'm exhausted, and all I want is to dance around the room to my own music and have the comfort that I'm alone and I'm the only one judging me (besides the cat and dog). I'm not saying that I can't be myself with him, or with people in general, but sometimes, I just want to sit and be content in the knowledge that I'm alone. I like to be alone, but I don't much fancy being lonely.
I told him this yesterday, that these visits make me so tired, and that I needed space--not because I need space to be away from him, I just need space that is mine and is free and open and where I can decompress.
I will admit that I was afraid after I said it, that he would get upset and say "Well, then, why don't I just leave now?" and that we'd fight... But he just kind of nodded as I quietly went about doing the dishes and without a word, went to sit out on the patio to enjoy the rainy weather and play his game.
Now, I'm the kind of person that will assume that I've done the wrong thing. *shrugs* I just do. That's just how I am. I may not have been wrong, and no slight may have been intended, but that's how I perceived it, and I will go and sit in the corner and go over and over in my head what I've done wrong and how I need to fix it before it's too late, before he decides that I'm not worth it, that five hours is too much, that infrequent visits are a bad idea and that we should call it quits. It doesn't matter what was said, or what wasn't said. I will sit there and think about it and obsess about how I've just done this terrible thing, telling someone how I feel, and how at twenty-five, I'm such a child about needing space and alone time and how selfish I am.
But when he comes back in, it's nothing. He'd been trying to make a kind gesture, letting me have some space to myself, to do my work, to lie down if I need it, and I just felt the most utter sense of relief wash over me. He lets me have my space, and even though I can see he doesn't want to go yet, he still goes. He is what I need, and he makes me feel special and worth it, even if I don't think I am. He doesn't question it, he just lets me have what I need.
My feels are gone now... Sigh... I'm waiting for him to get home...
