The Presence of Absence

“I do think that everyone has the power to modify their behaviors to become what they want to be,” my boyfriend said on the other side of the phone.

“I agree with you,” I said, while reserving my own ground of cynicism.

Optimism has never been my strongest suit and neither has long distance relationship.

When I first came across the idea of the presence of absence, I almost cried in that little rectangle seminar room with 12 other people including my professor freshman year. I could not figure out why I felt so connected to that seemingly paradoxical idea.

The presence of absence is all I know, unknowingly. Ever since my father left for his stupid project when I was in 3rd grade, I knew that I miss him. While I fought with my mother about how she couldn’t even cook anything other than fried rice with eggs and tomatoes, I also had nothing to say to my father on the other side of the phone. Then, we just exchanged two lines about whether or not we had dinner, and I would hand the phone over to my mom.

It hurts to miss someone. It hurts so badly that I want to shut it down once and for all. Or better, shut down all my feelings so that pain is not even included.

I still hate long distance relationship, and now I am in one. 3 months of summer seems to be low-risk, right?

I wrote a letter to my father, freshman year after I thought about the presence of absence, in the library on a Friday evening. I wrote about my anger, his absence in all facets of my life, and my inability to catch him up. I wrote about feeling that absence, so deeply that it got buried with thousands of other things. Emotional voidness and no physical contact created bricks that turned into walls around me. Or even worse, I started walking without a father, without feeling like I had one, and then I sprinted, because it felt so much better to drop it all. I had my own castle.

Well, here I am, in a long distance relationship. I knew this was a risk; I knew that I could easily fall back into cycles of frustration, and would be reminded of my emotional shut-down as self-protection. I know that I am doing it again, to push him away, because he’s physically away so he has to be emotionally far away too. It has to be that way.

I do want to make things work. I do want to behave in the way that I want to. I want to behave like I have never had to let go feelings to protect mysef. I want to feel secure in my long distance relationship. I want to communicate my frustration and insecurity that have everything to do with how I have been wired to function. Please know that I am fighting it.

I am just scared. I am scared that once he sees this side of me, this very insecure, very sad, a little depressed, obsessive, he will run away, or worse be overwhelmed and drowned in my emotional prison that he has to get out to be happy. I want him to be happy.

I don’t know what I am writing about anymore. It’s past 1AM. It’s bed time. Tomorrow is another day.