Come on People! Be a little more up-beat we are

My wife keeps bringing up a very good point. And by saying she brings up I mean it drives her crazy and she keeps telling me about. True we are in a tough position. It is no fun to be separated by an Ocean and many miles from someone you love. True we will only be able to see each other occasionally for the next couple of years (hopefully less). True that we have a long and difficult process to go through, involving a lot of overly bureaucratic government agencies. But that certainly doesn’t mean that life as we know it is over for the next couple of years. Or that everyday is going to be a challenge to get through and that everything is so awful. We certainly in our opinion have much more to be thankful for than to be upset about. While our current living situation is not an ideal one it is certainly much better than a large portion of people all around the world.

For months leading up to RB needing to move back to Russia everyone has focused solely on this event. Many people asked us “what are you going to do?” or “isn’t there anything you can do?”. Then they generally would follow up wit a “that is really going to suck” or “it’s going to be so hard”. Now we get a lot of messages saying things like “congratulation, too bad you are away from…” or “happy …. it must be so hard with you … so far away”. While we appreciate the fact that people are concerned with our wellbeing and our relationship, it tends to be dwelt on by a lot of people. In fact there are some people that it is the about the only thing that come up in conversation. Well there is a lot more going on than the fact the RB has to go through such a painful immigration policy.

If fact even though we can not physically be together we are still doing very well. Better than say a soldier deployed to the middle east, dealing with one of us being in a comma, having someone in prison, or say a contractor from the far east working to earn a living for his family in America. All of these people may not see their families for 6 months, a year, or even years. They may or may not be able to contact their loved ones as often as the like. They are under a lot more restrictions then we are for keeping our relationship close and going strong. So in our opinion we are not very bad off. In fact I can travel to see her every month and a half or so. With my current job I have the ability to travel more often than most people and have benefits that offset many of the costs. We talk daily if not more often. With the internet calls are free, we email all the time, and chat whenever both of us are at a computer. So we are in probably as good a place as any to deal with this situation.

Finally life is not over. Before RB left we were doing a ton of things. Yet most people just asked about her moving away. Now that she has moved many people continue to focus on the fact that we are living apart. RB is reconnecting with family and friends. She will soon have a new and exciting job. Her job search is keeping her busy along with her rediscovery of her home country. She is learning about local pop culture and how things are over there. I have been promoted, gotten a raise, will soon be going to a new project. I have a new roommate who is also an old roommate. I have a lot of projects on the house, and after such a busy summer could use a little rest. A little. So really people buck up, this situation isn’t that bad, it certainly isn’t the worst thing that could happen to us. Thanks for the thoughts but lets keep it positive.