erosion

drops of water, when applied for a long enough period, will wear down a mountain until it's just pebbles. everything erodes eventually, relationships too. especially when the things affecting the relationship are only of the "erode away" type. when there's never any time for being together, rebuilding, re-connecting, touching each other, slow erosion will eventually win.

in the beginning, we had time. loads and loads of time. long lunches, all the time. chats all day. multiple phone calls.

then it got even better - we got phones. suddenly we had morning commutes, unlimited no charge minutes for lunch and other calls, after work, evening commutes, a weekday evening, a weekend morning, sunday calls.

then the erosion started. he got into her email. the frequency of talks during the day declined. lunches became much shorter, if at all. each thing chipping away at her, at us.

then he found her phone. all that extra time - gone. less time during the day. less frequency. chip.

he started demanding that she keep him apprised of her whereabouts whenever she left the office. chip chip. no outside of work phone (or -any- ) contact at all.

i'd guess that the amount of time we have to talk now at about 1/3 as much as we had at one time. we don't have time to ease into being close so we're hesitant and reserved. we don't have time to speak at length about nothing at all, easing ourselves into shared intimacy; so we're almost never intimate. we don't have time to just -be-, to just -hang out-, to just be together, no time to hang and cuddle and touch and rebuild -us-.

so instead, if we're "off" a little at the end of our too-short time together, she goes home to her life, her home and her partner with us remembered as being "not good, again". i go home hurting, unable to do -anything- to make it better.

he wants her to go somewhere with her right after the office closes on friday. chip. chip.

he calls her and says he's 2 minutes away and wants to stop in. chip.

we NEVER get to be together (a whole 'nother topic). we don't get time to spend together.

and the scary thing is: we'll never again have more time than we do right now.

only less.