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12062024 - ’til death do us part
june 12, 2024
i first wrote this a few months ago with the intention of saying how long distance is secretly a buff. i’ve since changed my mind. instead, i think that approaching long distance like it is something to destroy is correct. i love too hard, my swag too different, they’ll kill me! regardless: no changes to my words from march. you live and learn.
march 26, 2024
the power couples i look up to in my life have all started off in some form of long distance. i told myself that i would never do it again after going through a few months of bicoastal dating with my first adult relationship. it was comprised of seeing each other in-between months and only having a few hours of real, waking overlap on any given day. tis the fate of an early bird east coaster and a night owl west coaster! and yet, here i am only a couple of years later, in a serious relationship that has only been long-distance.
it’s easier now though. we’re only an hour or two apart via plane, or an 8 hour drive away. it’s trivial to find an excuse to go back north and visit him. it isn’t difficult for him to take the time to visit me in boston. we’ve seen each other at least once a month since we’ve committed to one another, and the time we spend together in-person feels more meaningful because we know of its limitation. however, the moments in-between truly just suck! there is no clearer articulation than it just blows! i am alone when i slumber and alone in my wake. i cook more than enough for two and eat as one for days. it’s harder to go on walks alone in my own silence.
and yet i’ve noticed that after we spend extended time together, we also become more fond of the time apart. living together feels like pulses of energy that encourage us to work harder for one another, and then the days away is when we execute on said improvements. when he drives me to the airport, we go over things we want to accomplish before we see each other next. he is going to finish developing his game, i am going to finish a book, he is going to push a new update on the sim, i am going to finish writing a blog, he is going to work out everyday, i am going to work out everyday. i keep suggesting that we work on a project together — i say it will take form as a pseudo kid in the absence of our dragon baby. it’s a half-baked excuse to spend more hours together apart, but it’s mostly for a bond of creating things in tandem. it’s co-ownership that builds hearty security.
although i miss him everyday, i am beginning to appreciate my autonomy while being cognizant of having my major life partner already settled. i had breakfast with my boss the other week and i asked him about how he met his wife. they got together at the tail end of college and felt secure almost instantaneously, enough to spend the first 7 years of their relationship in various forms of LDR. he told me that their love was one of pushing each other far without being a limitation to the other. i do not think i am as selfless; i was born into a family that defined love as sacrifice. unconditional love was thrown around as a malicious term, understating what was given up for me in retort to times of adolescent misbehavior.
dating michael is slowly changing my perception of this form of love that i’ve been brought up with. unconditional love is now a powerful form of adaption to one another. it changes, it has fluxes, but at the end of time, i can still say i love him through our toughest moments. the strongest link of our love is our persistence to be good for and to each other. we fight for us.
june 12, 2024
it’s been almost 3 months since i touched this half-baked entry, and now it’s official: michael’s moving to the bay! we are fulfilling the classic bicoastal LDR and yet i’m not fearful that we will lose touch of each other. i’m moreso worried about his wellbeing rather than ours. if anyone tries to recruit my husband to a cult i will personally come over and bonk them on the head.
my mental model of long distance has been that our relationship is a persistent, constant upwards trajectory but the slope multiplies in our shared time. our short bursts of living together bring us closer much faster. we bicker a lot more but we understand each other better afterwards. we cry to each other on the couch and it’s nostalgic of our first week together, but i can tangibly feel how much stronger i care for him. i have never wanted someone to win more than i do now.
i’m thinking about two things a lot nowadays: winning and instant gratification. my job is for system thinkers who (rightfully) take their time. we’re a think tank. we sit down and we imagine every possible downstream effect of one wrong move - and it’s especially important when it comes to climate impacts. governance, deterrence, races to the bottom. i realize that on a relative timescale that these slow-moving pieces finish in a blink of an eye. i’ll see the effects of our decisions play out in decades meaning i’ll actually be alive to witness how the future pans out, so i better be on the right side of history and take the extra few weeks to make the correct calls.
at the same time, i miss being a scrappy founder who makes bad decisions and learns from them. making company decisions somehow felt like the stakes were lower; i could simply just bounce back and be better next time. even when i look at the current open system CDR industry, this is widely apparent. throw regulations, protocols, standards at project developers and they will execute it. but if not in place, as a startup, you do not necessarily have the responsibility to think about these broader dynamics - at least in the current state of markets. an important learning i’ve had recently is that if you’re an innovator, particularly one who has implications on governance, land changes, global effects, etc., you have a real obligation to think through the downstream implications that you are enabling.
so here’s my quip; arielle is a stubborn quick-mover who is in an extremely important role and all she can think about is the lack of dopamine in my day to day. i’m beginning to find new outlets for this:
there’s been more late nights than i typically enjoy but man. life has been looking up. there really is something about summertime that brings out the dawg in grinding. i have severely underestimated the power of wins, no matter how big or small. they fuel the gradual ascent upwards and keep you hopeful. you see progression and fantasize grandeur delusions of an eventual end, a triumphant dub, and sometime’s that’s all the motivation i need. i derive my W’s elsewhere if i find myself falling behind and it just shifts my head to an unstoppable mode. my nickname at cascade is quite literally “built diff”.
i’m beginning to personify the vow “’til death do us part” a lot more. there is incredible value from persistence. apples to feed my future family, steering healthy carbon removal markets, fighting tooth and nail for my partner’s continuous presence in the rest of my life - i’m in it for the long haul.
yours truly til death,
ari
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