morose
rysmiel posted a very poignant piece recently, entitled geography sucks. And I was going to post a comment to it sympathizing and agreeing that yes, geography does suck very, very much. But as I was composing that comment, it started evolving into a long rant about how much I hate geography. I was just deciding that this rant would probably be better as a new post when my baby sister messenged me to say that her boyfriend had dumped her because he couldn't handle the transatlantic thing. So now I really, really hate geography.I think my motivations for hating geography are rather less noble than
rysmiel's. I just want all my people to be near me so that I can enjoy their company, rather because I think I can have much positive impact on their lives (though of course, I do hope that my friends enjoy spending time with me as well). I hate that my three best friends from uni are in three different continents. I am of course deeply grateful that
pseudomonas at least is only a couple of hours away for this year, and that we do see eachother reasonably often. But it's still not the same as being girly best friends and doing the same course and always making shabbat together as if we were a family, and I miss that so much. And I'm deeply grateful that hatam_soferet is going to be in England for at least a few weeks this summer and that I'm going to see her. But I hate that she's been in Israel and therefore unreachable for two years, and I hate that because of financial and time constraints and geography I'm probably only going to see her for one weekend while she's here, and I hate that after this summer she's going to be the other side of the Atlantic and unreachable again for an indefinite amount of time. I appreciate all the effort darcydodo makes to phone me and email me and keep in touch via LJ, and all the virtual time we have together is lovely. But I hate that she is bloody 10,000 miles away most of the time, and that if I see her twice a year at a cost of frightening amounts of money, then that's a near miracle.I hate that this stupid fact of geography undermined the wonderful amazing couple relationship I had with
darcydodo. (This is irrelevant to the fact that I'm happy that we're both in good relationships with different people now; I still wish, in some paradoxical way, that we hadn't ended up splitting up.)I hate that my entire contact with New A and NZ in the past year has consisted of a handful of emails, the occasional phonecall and very brief visits. I hate that I've only had more interaction than that with
loreid is because she's on LJ. I hate that New A is lonely because most of the people he cares about are in America, and I also (selfishly) hate that he's going to be there himself next year, because then I fear I really won't be able to see him enough to maintain the connection between us. I hate that NZ is lonely too because she's stuck out in Dublin and most of her friends are in England or Israel, and I hate that she's had a hard time building up a Dublin social life because she's spent most weekends in London trying to keep up with her uni circle. I hate that loreid has been through all kinds of stuff this year and that most of her friends can't be there for her in person most of the time, and I hate that she's stuck in a long-distance relationship so she doesn't even see enough of kathrid. I hate that I don't see enough of my close circle from school to be part of eachothers' lives, though I very much appreciate the effort that FL, AN and HFL all make to keep in touch. I hate myself for not being a better correspondent with the people I care about. I hate that I've lost touch almost completely with RG and SC.
I am eternally grateful to MK for being so absolutely determined and stubborn in making sure we stay close despite geography, for bombarding me with answerphone messages and emails until he catches me at a time when we're free to talk, for making sure that he's free to spend at least a little time with me whenever I'm in the London area, and for regarding travelling here to see me as realistic. I hate that even with his making a supreme effort, we're only in touch every couple of months, though. I hate that I've missed seeing his boy grow up and metamorphose from an unutterably cute baby to someone who is beginning to be a person, and that he (little N) barely remembers who I am because I see him so very rarely. And I hate hate hate hate that MK is going to Australia in a few months, because realistically that's too much geography to make it even possible to see eachother for the next several years.
My closeness with
doseybat has never been based on spending a lot of time with her, and she's always been a wonderful correspondent, and wonderful at making time to see me in spite of geography. Still, I hate that when she got sucked under a couple of years ago by geography-induced loneliness I didn't know what she was going through and wasn't able to be there for her. I also hate that she's having to cope with a relationship that involves more commuting than is really sane or affordable. I hate struggling to maintain a connection with PM via the tenuous thread of approximately annual letters. I hate that I didn't discover until several months after the event that she had got married, because she was in Hong Kong at the time. I hate that she hasn't met any of my friends, and because of geography is unlikely to.
I hate that my sibs are scattered round the UK and that we no longer have that casual closeness of growing up together, but that we know eachother too well to specifically make arrangements to see eachother most of the time.
In general terms I hate that in order to go to England to see my friends I have to spend nearly two whole days (and too much money) travelling, and that the time we do have together is too brief and too overcrowded as a result. This applies to
lethargic_man also; I'm ok, even content, with only seeing him occasionally and doing lots and lots of intense correspondence in between, but I hate how much of a hassle for both of us to be able to spend time together at all. I hate that there are people I care about deeply who are too far away to see regularly even on this horribly inadquate basis. I hate that soon I'm going to move away from Dundee and I'll be in the same position vis-a-vis the friends I've made here. And I hate with a passionate fury that geography kept me apart from unanima mea soror Spanish M during a critical two-year period. I can not even describe how much I hate that I've been less than whole for nearly a decade now, and I hate geography for making it near impossible to repair that apartness and brokenness. I'm not going to continue this paragraph because I can't even think about this hatred without crying.
Still, LJ helps a lot. Really, really a lot.
