Day 3

Today was the best day BY FAR in what was one of my the worst weeks in memory.  What an emotional roller-coaster.  I went from missing and longing my gf to getting excited and preparing for her arrival to the US, only to be disappointed later when I realized she was going to be coming back one day later than planned and will be leaving one day earlier.  Then I saw her, which was the high at that point in the week, something that I was anxious about up until that point, only then to see her go, later fearing that she may have left me completely.  Then there was about 30 hours of pure pain and desperation, followed by the second phone call which just brought all the lows back to a new high.  Day 3, I can honestly say that I am spent, emotionally spent.

It felt soooooooooo good talking to her again and getting her reassurance that everything will be okay.  If there is one thing that I want going forward, it's that I want us to follow through on the commitments we make to each other.  I will assure her that I will change and yes, learn to be a better boyfriend.  How can I do that?  Well, step one will be to learn how to show her that I care. 

You see, the truth is whenever my gf is not around me, I do worry about her and wonder how she is doing.  I felt this way when she was working in Hong Kong this summer.  I always wondered if she would still be working or if she'd be asleep and if she needed any help with what she was working on, how her bosses and co-worker treated her.  I would wonder if everything is okay.  I knew she would be fine because she is so strong and so competent and most importantly, has her head on the right priorities much better than me, so i knew she would be fine in Hong Kong. 

But that was the problem.  I should have learned earlier that loving someone is about making the extra effort to show that person that you cared.  And that's what I'm going to do.  I am going to learn how to do that, even if it means asking overly obvious questions, I want to make sure that she knows that my mind is constantly on her. 

I will ask her about the weather in France and whether or not she has an umbrella if it is raining.  I will ask her if she has everything she needs as she gets situated into France.  I will not be too proud as to ask her if there are French men pursuing her.  I will ask her the little things, about whether or not she knows how to commute to where she needs to go and I will ask her the big things such as whether or not she has all the right insurance coverages for her travel overseas. 

For too much of my life, I've lived alone.  Growing up, I sort of had to figure things out for myself.  No one really could hand me things on a silver platter and I accepted the world to be as such.  I don't resent it, I see it as reality.  While I learned to take of myself, I never did learn how to take care of someone else... never did learn about the importance of all the little things, the things that I never really had in my life.

It's never too late to learn they say, and I will learn, learn to love my girlfriend better, learn to show her that I care, learn the little things.

I remember the first week we spent together in Japan.  We talked and talked and talked and in one conversation that I'll never forget, I complimented her on how perceptive she was, how wise she was, and how she could know the right answers to things intuitively because she paid attention to the little things, and it was the little things that brought her to me.  It's too bad I never developed her attention to little things because it was these little things that almost caused me to lose her. 

So the lesson learned?  Little things shouldn't be belittled.  The only things "little" about little things is that it only takes a "little" effort to show someone that you love them.  These "little" things really set the foundation for the kind of "big" things you can enjoy with someone.  In this case, these little things will only make me love her more.