Awareness Day: Not Just For Singles

Valentine's Day may very well be "Singles Awareness Day" for some, (although in elementary school it's more like "not-wanting-to-give-heart-covered-cards-to-everyone-in-your-class awareness day"). For me, though, for at least two years now, Valentine's has been a day of separation awareness - just another day apart from my girlfriend.

The tradition on this blog has been that I do not mention names of any of my family members or other people close to me. However, it has obviously not been outside the Publisher's scope to include writing on my personal life; after all, this is pretty much an online journal. Thus, I present you with the following timeline, absolutely essential to understanding my life, but nonetheless unmentioned - until now - on the blog. First, we start over two years ago, around the time when I was thinking about things like this and this. (These seem to be my only mentions of applying to college. And yes, I see that the second linked-to post violates my no-name tradition. But that was just once!) Anyway, here's the timeline:

• December 2008 and January 2009: All of my college applications are submitted.
• February (and Valentine's Day) 2009: The girl I would have gone to a school dance with is out of town to go to a cousin's wedding.
• April: I send in my decision to go to Georgetown. The deadline was May 1.
• May 2: The aforementioned girl and I go to prom together. Later that night, we decide to become a couple.

Now you see what the problem here is - the love of my life and I finally got together the day after it was finalized that we would go to college in different places. By the end of August, my girlfriend and I had spent the most wonderful summer of our lives together, and due to choices made before we came together, we were separated - and have been separated, now for a total of about 14 (non-consecutive) months of school out of the 21 months we've been a couple.

Now, even though it's Valentine's Day, I'm not going to gush about how much I love my girlfriend (very very very much). Instead, I think the fact we've stayed together, despite our fate to have spent so long a time apart (and possibly much more to come) more than demonstrates our devotion to each other. We can make it through any day. Valentine's Day is a pushover.