It's about time

(Notice: Here's a little game to play. I have riddled this blog post with cliches and puns about time... how many can you spot?? It's like I Spy... with puns... I hope you have a good time! Does that one count?)

"They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself."

~ Andy Warhol

Let's take some time... and talk about it.

Yep, let's talk about time.

There are hundreds of stupid time cliches that riddle through our lives. It's all in the timing - time heals all wounds - it's a matter of time - all the time in the world - etc etc. I could on forever. I think time is a really interesting thing, I mean it has to be, there's a huge magazine named after it... and the real question that has been plaguing my mind for the past few months, how does time play into a relationship and love? What are the affects that time has on a relationship?

And I couldn't help but wonder what do we do with our time? When it comes to love and relationships, if our time is of the essence, how can we possibly slow down and take our time?

There are a few things that have stirred on my current tryst with time.

First off, let's start of with me being bitter and cynical. I find myself more and more cynical as the days go by. I think it's that High School Self thing again. Being home, I'm slowly starting to retreat in my High School Self's disbelief in love and the concept that I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life. I didn't realize how obsessed I am with love until I got home and started remembering a time before I fell into it.

Anyway, the thing that really started me off on my bitter binge, there is a gay couple in St. Louis that I go to school with (or at least this year at some point in time I went with) who met last November. One of them goes to school in St. Louis while the other originated in Spain and was studying abroad in the Lou. Well, the inevitable happened and the one boy returned to Spain while the other did his time in St. Louis.... they should have fallen apart, right?

No, they didn't. They just celebrated they're seven month anniversary. Are you kidding me? How is this possible? Oh, and did I mention they're moving in together now?

Now, what gets me most bitter about this how situation is that my last two serious relationships, both involved a little bit of distance... well one involved a little distance and the other involved six hours of distance and neither really worked out. And by never worked out, I mean they're both really complicated and off-the-wall relationships now.

At first I blamed my boys... they were immature and couldn't handle such a serious time commitment. Then, I convinced myself at first that maybe I just wasn't a long distance kind of guy. I need quality time in a relationship, I need to spend lots of time together, I have to have a sufficient amount of couple time and not just on the phone... And eventually my personal defeat festered in to a full blown cynicism. I had resigned myself that long distance relationships never work out, it's not possible. Long distance relationships are like creating an imaginary friend that you fantasize about sleeping with and talk every once in awhile...

And then this stupid couple's life appears in my facebook feed and my severe case of cynicism evolves into a fatal case of bitterness. Which, of course, is followed by me going to check my e-mail and on the Yahoo mainpage is an article about how it is healthy for at some point in time a couple does a little bit of long distance... it's good for them..

Pardon my language but,

Are you fucking kidding me?

How can I not even make a six hour long distance relationship work when this couple is an ocean apart from each other? How can this stupid article tell me that having distance is good for a couple when that's the thing that ruined everything in my last relationship?

Both of these previous relationship dives into distance, both said during our break ups that the timing was bad. We pined over the fact that we should have met and gotten together some time from now, when we were ready to be together and handle a big time long relationship. Then the timing would have worked out.

If time apart doesn't tear a couple apart but instead makes for a better time... what's wrong with me? Why can't I make this relationship that means the world to me work instead of it being a complicated mess?

Wow, I'm being needy, ridiculous, and dramatic... what's new...

Maybe, I need to stop placing the blame (and stop taking it out on this poor couple that I've honestly talked to the members of twice in my life) and start figuring this thing out.

So, if timing was the problem, should I just wait it out? I mean, I know whenever this boy is ready to commit, I know the relationship is going to be fantastic... but...

In Cabaret rehearsal, we've talked a lot about wasting time. People coming late to rehearsal, which sends our rehearsal schedule off, which sometimes causes actors to wait around and do nothing. By waiting around... Am I wasting my time?

I'm not the kind of guy who waits around for someone. I have to find something to occupy my time whether it be theatre, a relationship... something to keep my busy. I don't function well when I have nothing to do.

So I find something to pass my time while I wait for my upcoming relationship, or waiting for an old relationship to come back... and it's fun for the time being, but never as good as the real thing. And I guess that's where the wasting time comes into. But then the stupid idea that 'true love waits' comes ringing into my ears. While true love waits, time waits for no man, and thus you have to move on with you're life. Or find something to do while you wait for your life to move on. Or someone to do. Or a hobby not boy related.

I got cast in an upcoming production of The Producers as a dancer. That'll keep me busy for the rest of the summer. Keep my mind of being bitter, and cursing successful couples, while I twiddle my toes and wait....

And then you get a text from that someone. And you have a fun conversation. And everything is okay. It reminds you that maybe... you can make a relationship work out, love is real, and that it's just a matter for time and patience. I'm not the boys in that couple. I'm my own person who needs different things. But when all the time has passed, you remember how worth it the whole thing will be. Time stands still... and for a short time, you smile and forget the cynicism, the bitterness, the jealousy... and remember you have love. There is someone who loves you. And it makes it okay.

I'm ready to go back to St. Louis. I want to hurry up, because once I get there... I'll have all the time in the world to fall in love. But right now... it's not the time and place.

Maybe it won't take so long... Time flies after all....