Who is that on your computer screen?

    I have been engaged and away from my fiance for 5 weeks now and I must say that it has been more difficult than I thought. My lovely young lady will be here next week and what a relief that will be. The only thing that looms over us is 6 more weeks of separation followed by a brief visit at Thanksgiving and another 5 weeks of separation. Some days it feels nearly unbearble. It made me think about all those troops in Iraq and how hard it must be to be away from their spouses. I served a mission for 2 years and I know as well as anybody what it is like to have limited communication with loved ones, but not being by your spouse is much harder.

There are some up sides to this whole situation. We have been able to get to know each other in a very different way that we might  not have otherwise. We have to communicate purely through words. No facial expressions and body language will help here. At first it is easy to have a few squabbles over some misunderstood words. You have to pay attention to tone and the silence in between sentences to really understand the other person.  I have found it challenging, but gratifying as well. I definetly don’t take her for granted as much any more.

In many ways absense has made our hearts grow fonder. We wake up each morning and talk on the phone in bed for 10 minutes to start out the day. How many couples do that in their hectic schedules of kids and work. I think that we will try to continue the practice after we are married. I know many couples might do this before bedtime, but the exhaustion of the day makes for weak conversation. An added bonus is that we can usually remember and recite the crazy dreams we had from the night before.

Our most recent form of electronic communication ( ah…the gift of technology) is a web cam. I am actually trading glances with my dearest as I type this piece. We just tried it out yesterday and found it be quite entertaining. My heart actually started to race a bit as I saw her laugh and smile for the first time in over a month. You kind of start to forget certain mannerism after a while and it was very refreshing to see her. I think it will be a good tool in our arsenal to stay close as we sit so far away. A lot of people think that technology has made our lives so distant, but in our case it couldn’t bring us closer together.