relationship – Christa Bercerita

The little things

Since it’s February the 14th and ~~I miss my boyfriend~~ we’re all feeling the love in the air, let’s talk about my long distance relationship.

Being in a long distance relationship for quite a while now, I have received a lot of questions from people in my surroundings. Particularly, “How the two of you manage?”

Of course being in a long distance relationship have a lot of pros and cons. I’m sure there are a lot of writings about that already. So in this post I will share to you, how do we manage to survive the distance all this time!

Shoes — May our path will always be showered with pretty little things despite the hurdles that may come! 🙂

The key for me is to appreciate the little things. Like how we have nicknames for each other. The nicknames somehow make us feel closer, give a more personal touch to the relationship.

Then there’s also the constant Facetime-ing. We facetime every day, when I woke up (he’s off work), during my lunch time (he’s going to bed), when he wokes up (I’m resting at home, before I go to bed) and repeat. It does not have to be long, sometimes only a 5 minute call just to tell each other a bit of story of our day. Or even just to say hello. It does not always have to be video call (depending on the internet connection or the situation), an audio call works fine too. When it’s weekend or the holidays, we try to squeeze at least an hour to have a longer conversation and talk about many things.

We also, try to introduce each other to the people in our lives. Even if, let’s say, I haven’t met his bestfriend, but at least we’ve talked on the phone and he knows who I am… vice versa. That way we won’t feel left out.

We try our best to express our love towards each other despite the distance. He does it by giving me surprises. I try, too, but somehow he always caught me off guard! Hehehe. Like what happened last night, during our facetime session…

The boyfriend: I have a confession!
Me: Okay continue…
The boyfriend: I meant to give you a surprise for Valentine’s day but I failed.. *frown*
Me: *blushing* Oh what is it? Tell me tell me!
The boyfriend: So I wanted to send you heart shaped Pizza and from Google I found a Pizza place that can do that.. Pizza Morzano?
Me: Marzano? That’s next to my office! *smiling*
The boyfriend: Exactly! But then when I called them they don’t accept credit cash payment, cash only. I meant to send it for your lunch time today but… I’m sorry..

Really, when he said he has a confession I thought he’s going to say something bad! Hahaha. Now I feel bad because I did not prepare anything for him. Oops. Hehe.

Anyway those kind of little things really help in making the distance feels shorter, don’t it? I’m enjoying our days so much that I did not realise that it’s less than two months until we meet again! Yayyyy 😀

Happy Valentine’s day for all of you! I hope you’re having a wonderful day. It is indeed just like any other day for me but of course it’s no harm to spread some love 🙂

The first year

Today is our 1st anniversary!

Me and my boyfriend started dating after knowing each other for two years. Knowing him has been a continuous process – I’m glad that our relationship keeps evolving and grows stronger with each passing days 🙂 This past first year was exciting, though we did not see each other at all (our next meeting is scheduled for next Spring), we managed to maintain our communication very well. We had lots of arguments – never too serious, mostly over small things – and those arguments somehow helped to make our relationship stronger. I thought I knew him well already since we’ve known each other for a while before finally being in a relationship.. but no, there are still so many things that surprise me about him (and vice versa) now that we’re a couple! hahaha.

I know that we shouldn’t be counting days and years, but there’s no harm in celebrating the first, right? As a part of celebration, we decided to send each other cards – just a little something special. To our surprise, we ended up buying a similar card! I was so surprised when his card arrived, because it looks so similar to what I bought him.

See that picture? The left one was the card I bought and going to send to him.. while the right one was the one that he bought and has sent to me. I was on Skype with him when I opened the card and instantly laughing when I saw it. I immediately showed him the card I bought as well and made him laugh as well. What a coincidence! 🙂

To sum up this first year, I would say (and we both agreed to this) that time flies really fast. I guess it’s true what they say.. time flies when you’re having fun and I can’t be more thankful to have such a wonderful guy to share it with!

On arguments.

I’ve been having arguments with my boyfriend. We normally resolve our arguments within 24 hours, but this time it has been more than a day… and I still feel uneasy.

Couples argue all the time, don’t they? Sometimes it’s caused by something mundane, sometimes it’s extraordinary. It’s part of being in a relationship, and I accept that.

But being in a long distance relationship AND having arguments really got me tired. It’s not that I’m tired of him but I’m just tired of having arguments over the same thing over and over. Really.

Anyway.. any of you reading this currently in a LDR too? how do you resolve arguments?

It would be nice if we can resolve it over a nice discussion face to face, right? But since we can’t see each other.. normally I just sleep it off, or listen to cheesy songs.. like this one. :)))))

Thank you FaceTime!

If you know me personally or have been reading my previous posts, you should know by now that I’m currently in a long distance relationship. HA. Distance. Between California to Jakarta, this time. Waiiit.. this time? Yep, this is not my first time being in a relationship that involves distance. My previous relationship also involved distance, I was in the UK and he was in Jakarta. Then I went back home to Jakarta and he went to Sumatra. It lasted around one year. Did it end because of distance? I don’t know. But it was not meant to be.

Anyway.. I’m not going to compare the two relationships here.. but I just want to tell you, it is very easy to be in a long distance relationship nowadays! Yep, you read it right – easy. Now let me tell you my story..

Back in 2010, I had to rely on Blackberry Messenger to communicate. Skype was almost a luxury – given the fact that I only had a Blackberry phone which did not support video calls, and time difference made us hard to find convenient time for both of us to be able to be in front of the computer (not to mention Indonesia’s rather slow internet speed!). Once every week would be a blessing, a ‘quality’ call which lasted more than 30 minutes would be a jackpot!
Of course of course, I have to be fair. Good ol’ Blackberry phone allowed me to send and receive pictures, voice notes, and emails. That’s something.

Now, I’ve been talking to R for almost three years now. We both used Blackberry phone during the first 1,5 years and during that time we also had a couple of times of Skype calls, but after we both changed our phones to iPhone.. boy communicating was easy breezy! Like Blackberry, iPhone has an instant messaging feature, iMessage, which allows you to send text, voice notes, and pictures. But then there’s FaceTime. Our life saviour! Even before officially being in a relationship, we would spend at least an hour every day talking through FaceTime. The 14-15 hours time difference did not seem to be a problem, nor that it is a problem now. His morning is my night, so normally we talk before I go to bed/he goes to work and while my morning is his afternoon, we talk on my way to the office/on his way home from work.

With FaceTime, me and R could talk and see each other without have to spend time in front of the computer. We can do it whenever, wherever. Even with the new iOs 7 launched late last year, FaceTime now has Audio version, which is like a regular phone call, without the video. Makes it even easier! If previously I had to (at least) find a quiet place and decent spot so we could FaceTime, nowadays I could just use Audio FaceTime when it’s not convenient for either of us to use video. YAY!

I know being in a long distance relationship is not the ideal situation.. but if you have no other choice, might as well work your best to make the relationship work, right? Let me tell you, with the help of FaceTime, I have less things to worry about. Now why don’t I use Skype? or other messaging platforms? Simply because we both happen to use iPhone and somehow FaceTime’s connection is more stable than Skype, or other platforms’.

To end my story, here’s a snapshot of my latest #thankyoufacetime moment. It was taken last Sunday night Jakarta time (Morning in California), and we were talking before R decided to play basketball. He then decided to “take” me with him because the park was empty and ~~he missed me~~ we still wanted to talk – at first he was just sitting in the bench and we were talking, when suddenly his phone went off and he had to charge it. Lucky the park has an electrical socket put conveniently, so he could place his phone, charge it, while let me watch him shoot some balls 🙂

The one where I watched him play basketball!

Though it was only for a while, seeing him playing basketball made me so happy! I know there are a lot of moments that I had to miss because of distance, but I finally got the chance to see him doing one of the things that he loves. I guess that was one of the things that made our long distance relationship easier. Just like what’s written in Apple’s website, FaceTime really made me feel that I was there in person, even though I was not. So thank you, FaceTime! 😀