fly-in/fly-out relationships. boo.

I have a very strange relationship. For the year and a bit we’ve been together, we’ve probably only been geographically together for a total of around five months.

 

First he’s away, then I’m away, then he’s away; we’ve only been able to catch up in the small gaps in between. It sucks.

 

I think it’s starting to take a toll on me. I’m feeling drawn thin. I don’t know why. It’s like a relationship you have when you don’t have a relationship. I don’t want that. Thinking about the fact I don’t want that makes me sad, because that only leads to thinking about what to do about it, and that leads to places I don’t want to go.

 

We owe the latest period of separation to the dusty town of Karratha, a town created to rape the earth, full to brim with men away from their loved ones/partners/families, doing fly-in/fly-out rosters for years on end.

 

Well, it now seems Karratha is going to hold my boy hostage for a total of three months instead of two. Mel is sad. Sure, there are relationships that go through worse separations and manage just fine, but I’m feeling quite raw and unstable at the moment, and this is not helping. Straw camel back and all that hack.

 

I noticed something the last time I dropped him at the airport at 5am for the next fly-out – men everywhere, flying out to one of the mining towns up north; women dropping the men off, hugging them, looks of sad melancholy on their faces; children in pyjamas realising another fatherly absence is on the way. It doesn’t seem right.

 

A large chunk of our men are flying north to work themselves raw, and leaving us to the task of coping without them. They come back broken and stressed, we patch them up as best we can; rinse, repeat.

 

In my line of work I deal with men who fly offshore for up to five weeks at a time, for years at a time. You would not believe how many marriage or partner breakups occur because of this. The men are away for such a long time, then when they return I imagine there’s always a period of re-acquaintance with your loved ones; almost like each of you has to get used to the other’s presence, and scent, all over again. When you are finally meshed once more, off he goes again.

 

The money is good, but at what price? My boy mentioned it was good to consider his bank balance. “But what about your love balance?” I asked.

 

What is this doing to our society? If I go by what it’s done to me in the short stint I’ve been through, it’s creating a society of broken and bruised hearts.

 

I guess I should have tempered this post with a warning that it was going to be a bit of a woe is me, and maybe I should just suck it up and cope with it. After all, he’s only doing sub-contracting work so it’s not like this is a permanent thing (unless work here in the big smoke continues to be non-existent). It’s just awfully frustrating that we haven’t been able to have a long period of time together since we got together.

 

People for whom a long distance love relationship is their normal way of life strike me as funny creatures. An intimate relationship is a physical thing, not just a mental thing – both need existence for a relationship to survive. It’s just like having a faux connection, an on-paper relationship.

 

I always wonder if long distance relationships occur more frequently in people who have trouble or are uncomfortable with physically showing love to another person. You know, like being able to say to the world they’re in a relationship, when for all purposes, they’re not.

 

If this relationship lasts (and I don’t see why it can’t – he’s lovely, I love him and his extremely random ways), then it is going to be one strange social experiment.

 

At least our ‘honeymoon period’ will go twice as long as everyone else’s…

 

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And now for today’s instalment of bad day/good day:

 

Bad:

 

• I woke up with a hangover, without having done the drinking bit. I don’t think that’s fair at all.
• Went shopping for a dress. Failed dismally.

Good:

 

• I didn’t hit any cars in the crazy dodgem carpark
• I danced like an idiot in my living room to a kicking trance live stream station