We were a long-distance couple, D and I, within weeks of becoming a couple at all toward the end of our senior year of high school. His family moved away that summer, and then we started college in cities a thousand miles apart.
Before that point in time, we still didn't get to see each other very frequently (dating wasn't an activity Troubadour Dad approved of, per se), so we got to know each other by phone when we weren't in physics class, launching things or setting them on fire. The only time of day that happened to work was late at night, after my parents had gone to bed.
To paraphrase what I wrote chez French Fancy, I was a tired Troubadour by then, so I would doze off in the middle of sentences -- but I'd still be talking. One of the phrases I randomly uttered in that state was striped-up paisley. To this day, we can't peg the origin or inspiration for it within that conversation, but we used striped-up paisley for the eight years we were apart to characterize our long-distance relationship. Striped-up paisley love: it may not look typical to other people, but it reaches across crazy circumstances.
And that hasn't changed, now that we're together at last. I started this blog to keep a record of our time apart, our ways of coping, our reasons for sticking to each other in spite of the inordinately frustrating challenges those eight years presented. Going through more recent posts, which talk a little about the new challenges in adjusting to each other, I realize that striped-up paisley isn't a temporary condition. As obvious as it may seem, the ways we've learned to love and stay in love were formed out of that experience. And we're using what we learned then to handle the challenges now, in each other's presence.So, striped-up paisley. It's my outlook for us. And I guess it's what this blog was and still is about.
8 comments:
(thrilled to be mentioned in your post - ta)
I've got to say it - your dad sounds more and more of a real killjoy, just trying to keep you down. OK - got that off my chest
I love your special phrase and hope that, now a lot more time of you reuniting has passed, you are gelling together better. I'm having to do this on a minor scale when Mr FF returns from Paris. It always feels a bit weird at first to be a couple again and I'm slightly stilted with my responses to things
xx
FF -- I was the oldest, so it made sense that he was a bit overprotective when his girls hit the dating age. I was annoyed then, but I also had few prospects anyway, so it wasn't an issue that came between us too often. What I'd love, though, is for him to acknowledge the existence of the people my sisters are dating and less begrudgingly at that -- the sisters Troubadour are old enough to hold jobs, for goodness' sake! He's sort of coming around on that one, but not without disproportionate resistance.
Those first few hours of being in D's presence were always odd. Stilted, as you say, is a great word to describe the way I felt my responses were. Scripted, too. I'd hug D because he opened his arms, but I didn't feel the impulse to hug in the same way I did before he went away because I'd had to get through so many weeks without hugging him. So even the warmth or delight (which were real, just suppressed) in the hug had to be consciously called forth.
Striped up paisley...that is such a sweet story. I hope you continue using that phrase so that the grandchildren someday will incorporate it into their vocabularies and it becomes a legacy.
A lovely idea, SuziCate :). If we ever manage to have those children!
I love the term "striped-up paisley." It seems a fitting term not just for your relationship (which I am just starting to learn about), but for the challenges that face all of us as we try to mix our shades and colors up with those of another person. Swirls, straight lines, angles, shapes all coming together.
Thanks, Kristen! The phrase does lend itself well to the idea you're describing.
I actually hadn't used striped-up paisley in a while, but when I was unpacking the pillow slips one of my sisters made us for Christmas, the fabric pattern jogged my memory. Hence the response to French Fancy and then the background for the blog banner :)
I love this term! I think striped-up paisley is a perfect summation of our fractured, freakshow lives!
Oh yes, you've got paisley in your banner; I hadn't realised.
x
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