Hearts Don’t Read Maps

It’s true. Hearts don’t read maps.  They understand nothing about geography. My heart has no clue that there are 7785 miles or 12,529 kilometers between Oklahoma City and Doha. This distance was not at all a concern when I fell in love with Boyet.  These love miles never seemed to be an obstacle in the early stages of our relationship.  What my heart saw was a funny, happy, sweet guy that made me smile.   We didn’t intend to fall in love and complicate our own lives so much; but our hearts couldn’t help it.  They knew that there was something more that existed beyond these miles.

When I began playing Zynga’s Texas Hold “Em Poker on Facebook, I never expected to find my soulmate.  I was just looking to win large amounts of pixelated chips with which I could do nothing. When we stumbled into the same poker table and began chatting, neither of us expected to fall in love.  But It was a chance encounter that has changed both of our lives. Several months later, we both flew to the Philippines to meet.  He lives and works in Qatar even though is is Filipino. For me, I knew I needed to meet his family, understand his upbringing and to see the world through his eyes.  What is it about his world that is so different than mine and how do we bridge that gap?  Can we build a successful, loving, long term, blissful relationship in spite of the differences?

Lately I have been thinking a lot about these love miles and how we overcome them.  How did we get to be so happy together even though we are never together?  What does it mean to be happy in a long distance relationship? What are our key strategies to surviving long term in a long distance relationship?  What coping mechanisms do we employ to keep us from cracking?  Over the next few weeks, I am going to be taking a look at this topic to see what really works for us and what is it that makes this relationship so healthy for both of us.  I am also going to be interviewing a few other couples to see what it means to live beyond these love miles.  It’s not an easy loving someone is so far away; but I do it because he is worth it.  Our love is worth it, even if our hearts can’t read maps.