have a long term relationship

:-D
Well, he’s been gone for 5 days and just today we began talking about going to Southeast Asia together in March / April.

So I guess this is a long term relationship, he he!

We could each take about a month off work for this trip …buuuuut… we have learned from past mistakes, so this time we’ll make it around a 2 week trip (that was his idea, even!).

I decided on Thailand, Malaysia and maybe Indonesia (not sure if we’ll have that much time. He expressed interest in Singapore once before too. The only problem is – he mentioned once that he doesn’t like hot places and he gets really grumpy when he’s too hot! Now he’s saying, Oh it’s not a big deal, it will be fine. Hmmmm….

He’s from Vancouver. Sometimes the temperature gets pretty high there in summer – 27 or 28, but it’s never humid. I think he’s seriously underestimating the impact of humidity, cause if there’s one place that I know is humid, its Southeast Asia!!!

This may not be such a great idea after all. Well, we can always go somewhere else – maybe China/Mongolia/Russia.

Oh yeah – he had a friend staying at his place while he was gone, and she hadn’t gotten her stuff fully out when he returned home. So he actually told me “OK, I’m starting to see how annoying it can be to have someone in your space all the time”. Awww…

I got him on the plane. After a few stops and starts, the 5 days in Tokyo went fairly well, considering. New Years was fun, we spent almost all our money (the money we had taken out for the trip), but we didn’t run out. Good thing, too ‘cause the banks are closed until tomorrow! :-/

However, I am very happy to have endless time to myself at the moment.

Am I going to start to miss him soon? I wonder… Maybe I won’t. Hmm. Too soon to tell.

Anyway – one thing I do know – I never again want to spend such a long stretch of time with anyone similarly dependent on me. I’m just not good at dealing with that kind of stress.

I’m in Tokyo with my boyfriend – who has been in Japan for the past 2 and a half weeks – and a lot of my energy this holiday season is going into NOT choking him to death. (I think he feels the same sometimes, but not as frequently as I do!)

I suppose my former lifestyle (pretty much always on my own, except the occasional involvement with someone in a different city) has left me ill-equipped to handle a real relationship.

On the other hand, having someone come to visit your city for 3 weeks is a pretty extreme ordeal… especially in Japan, which can be a very intimidating place to just strike off on your own as a newcomer.

I feel a bit bad though, because the other day he was talking about something and he mentioned ‘you know, I’ll be gone in 5 more days, and then it might be 9 months til we see each other again’ – I think he was trying to make me sad…

But quite frankly, I felt relieved. I am really looking forward to his leaving in a few days – he leaves on Jan 2, and I don’t start work until Jan 9 – so I will finally get a full week of REAL VACATION time! I’m very much looking forward to that.

I’m not saying I want to break up with him, I am just belatedly realizing my limits. They have been pushed to the max and beyond. I’m on the verge of realizing a few key things about myself and relationships, but I know I won’t get there until I have free time by myself to reflect.

Ooh, tonight is Dec 24 in Japan – time for Xmas presents!

I’m excited about this because when we were in Kyoto, he was talking about buying a sword, but decided he didn’t want to carry it around all day. He seems to think I got him either a snow monkey (yes a live one – as if!), a rain stick (don’t even know what that is), or a sword for Christmas.

Of course – I got him a sword for Christmas. Actually a set of 2 (katana and a muzashii) and a stand for them. And I’m sure there’s some traditional superstition that says you shouldn’t buy knives for your significant other. Oh well.

Good thing I’m not superstitious :-)

I think we have worked out a few things. I am noticing some issues that come up again and again though.

On Friday we went to Kyoto overnight – it’s been sunny and warm all weekend!! Saw some lovely places, interesting artsy shops, etc.

One good thing that came out of it – I made a mistake and we got off at the wrong stop once, and we had to walk quite a long way. After that, J started to pay more attention to the train schedules and stops.

Sooo, now that he’s had a little taste of not just blindly following me around the transport systems :-) I sent him off on his own adventure.

We are back in Nagoya again, and today he wanted to go to the Toyota car museum (ugh – boring!), and he wanted me to go with him, but I said no way. Then I gave him directions, even got a map off the internet and phoned to make sure it was open. And I sent him on his way – yay! A whole afternoon to myself! (Most of the time is being used to do laundry and catch up on email, but the solitude is still pleasant.)

Anyway, yes things are going a bit better. In a few days we’re going to Tokyo too. We’re staying with my friends over New Years, which is great, but I told J maybe we can be sneaky and go a day earlier to stay in a capsule hotel (just for the experience – I’m not going to pay for one in Nagoya!).

we were supposed to go on a ski trip this week. I was kind of looking forward to it (even though I don’t ski at all and it would be expensive), because he’d be busy on his own for a few days skiing. And then I could read books, get some other stuff done, study Japanese, etc.

Things that I can’t do now.

Unfortunately, there’s NO SNOW in Nagano!

Since going skiiing was one of the main things he wanted to do in Japan, I feel bad for him. He has taken it fairly well, considering that he spent a lot of money to come to Japan in winter. And brought all his ski clothes along, etc.

we seem to be sorting things out. We had fun together yesterday. He actually changed out of his slob clothes, and looked good! Eeew, those shoes he usually wears – yucky.

Anyway – he seems less demanding lately. I have forcibly reserved the weekday mornings for MYSELF buy using work as an excuse (even though I don’t really have to work, hee hee!)

But seriously, it has been tough for me to get on 43things for the past week, because when I’m at home he’s always there too, asking what I’m doing. Yesterday he was being snuggly in the afternoon, so I thought, – great he can nap on me, and I can read my book… but Nooooo – it would be okay if I was just staring at the ceiling, or napping too, but not reading a book. WTF?!

I actually told him he was needy once (about 3 months ago) – he WAY overreacted, and I’ve never heard the end of it.

SO I guess I’m not going to get any internet time or book-reading time in the next 2 weeks. The best I’ll be able to do is sneak away to the internet cafe occasionally (where I am right now).

Perhaps we need to do something non-interactive together – like go to the symphony, or movies or stuff like that. I just can’t pay attention to him all the time. I can’t.

not going particularly well.

2 weeks left. How many hours is that?

I’m finding him to be a bit clingier than I’d like, and somewhat demanding about it…

Hopefully it’s just a temporary first-week-together-after-several-months-apart thing.

Today is day 5 in Japan together.

But what a grump! His flight was 4 hours longer than necessary, all his bags were hand-searched at customs (apparently this happens to surly men quite often, hee hee), he (also predictably) got hassled for travelling on an Italian passport from Canada via US (no visa) to Japan (no visa), all his supporting ID is Canadian, oy! But no time to renew the Candian passport before the trip.

ALso he got 3 hours of sleep the night before the flight, and had a hectic week leading up to his trip.

He’s less grumpy now, but sleeping all day and has WAY too much energy when I get home from work. He says he’s happy just to relax and hang out because he was pretty busy just before he left Canada.

Well, I gave him some info about the city and a key to the apartment, so he’s on his own for now. It has been raining lately though.

I only have 2 more days of work, then I’m off for the holidays, so we’ll be able to do more fun stuff as of this weekend!

Tonight we’re having dinner at my friend’s place, because lots of people want to meet him.