Meragukan

Tiba-tiba saja pikiran ini kembali mengingat momen dimana ketika dulu ketika akan menikah, saya pernah menangis di masjid karena ketakutan akan bayangan ujian long-distance-marriage yang akan kami jalani.

Lalu apakah ujian itu datang?

Iya, ujian itu datang pada saatnya. Tepat beberapa hari setelah menikah. Baru saja mulai akan saling mengenal, kami sudah dipisahkan oleh lautan Jawa karena beda tempat untuk berjuang antara Jakarta dan Makassar.

Apa yang bikin takut?

Takut hingga kapan harus LDM? sementara pindah ke pulau jawa tak semudah itu. Lalu untuk apa jika aku menikah tapi harus LDM? serta banyak sekali komentar-komentar negatif kolega yang malah menambah negativity pada waktu itu.

Bagaimana perasaannya habis nikah langsung pisah?

Sedih sih, kebayang-bayang terus tentang keinginan untuk hidup bersama satu atap. Saling mengupayakan untuk beribadah. Dan dapat menunaikan hak dan tanggung jawab sebagai suami istri. Tapi karena masih terpaut jarak, yasudah.

Hingga perjalanan pernikahan tahun ke lima ini, kami sudah mengalami proses LDM beberapa fase. Yang paling berat adalah ketika fase LDM selama dua tahun karena saya sedang menempuh pendidikan di Korea Selatan.

Berat pada perjalanannya. Beruntungnya, Allah selalu menurunkan Rahmat-Nya. Berupa dikuatkan nya pundak kami dan diberikannya kesabaran yang setiap hari diperluas.

Hingga hari ini, meskipun kami telah bersama, masih saja ada potensi untuk melalui perjalanan LDM lagi karena tuntutan pekerjaan yang tak terhindarkan.

Namun, sikap kami tetap sama. Optimisme kami tetap sama. Berprasangka baik terhadap takdir Allah, bahwa ini adalah sebaik-baiknya jalan untuk kami. InsyaAllah akan dipermudah diperjalannya.

Hal yang dulu tampak meragukan, ternyata atas kehendak Allah hal itu dapat terlewati pelan-pelan dan dengan kepastian.

Keraguan yang dijawab olehNya dengan kepastian.

having to have difficult conversations with your partner is hard

the tism doesn't help. I can't stop myself thinking about how upset I am and it spirals until I'm sobbing.

and then i can't help feeling like i will lose my words when i end up actually talking to him.

it's not something i feel i can talk out or write down

bleh

I noticed you've been making more art of Machete and Vasco after they met again as adults - is this canon? Do they get to rekindle their friendship after all, or is it still brief and bittersweet? (I love your characters and art, btw!)

Thank you! I'm glad you like them!

It's canon, I believe. After their confusing and apprehensive friends-to-lovers involvement ended in their early 20's, their paths end up crossing again unexpectedly in their mid 30's and things gradually grow from there.

happy pride month to them ig

Lex "Let's grow a clone child to defeat the world's strongest hero Superman" Luthor is giving me the same energy as Endeavor aka "My greatest masterpiece will defeat No. 1 hero All Might".

Okay but the life of the legendary Shovana Narayan altered my brain chemistry, a superb academic record hold, a maestro in kathak and then also a civil services officer with a long distance marriage and motherhood

If she could do this in the 50s and 60s, wtf is stopping me from doing so, when I have never wanted just one thing to define me

Marriage is such a goal for me. A healthy & loving marriage. With someone who is my best friend. That's happiness to me.

I love that there are people out there that potentially think me and my beloved dickhead Alex are actually married because of some of our posts. I'm happy to keep fuelling those rumours. For better or for worse, bitch < 3

Sorry to be a wet blanket but jokes about how a coach’s spouse is or isn’t getting laid tonight after a win or loss respectively smell very rancid to me like…….

Spring Edition Flufftober Day 7

And i'm behind with these prompts, again

I'm jumping ahead a few months in my Foyle's War AU ahead to write this for the Spring edition of @flufftober.

Giving someone a Present

April 1943

Sam carefully folded the pink scarf her parents had sent back on itself, brushing her fingers on the wool. It would just about go, especially if she wore it with something green-coloured. And it's warm, which is the most important thing, the way the wind even in spring can bite on those long bike-rides.

"Ah, here's one more." Kit, sitting opposite, had reached down and, from somewhere, pulled out yet another package of brown paper, holding it out to her.

She took the small rectange on reflex. "But you've already given me one." Two extra, hard-won, spanners to travel in her coat pocket, in case the bike were to break down enroute.

"Mmm- not exactly mine." Kit said as he settled back into his chair. "I just kept it safe a while."

She pulled the rough packing string free, unfolding the paper and lifting it away. A hardback book with a smokey blue dust-jacket, evocative of shadows and searching torches appeared

"Oh! It's the new Lorac! 'Death Came Softly'" she read off the front cover "I saw this was out in The Times a while ago, but to get it -"

She glanced up at Kit, he flicked his fingers a little, as if to say 'open it' She eased open the cover. Familiar handwriting, set stark against the thin paper of the flyleaf.

' My Dearest Sam,

Happy Birthday to you this 20th April 1943,

My own darling, dearling, Wife,

& Many Happy Returns of the Day.

I hope you enjoy this one

Your ever-loving Husband

Andrew

XXX

She gently brushed her fingertips against the ink, looked up at Kit

"He bought it down...?"

"When he was last on Leave." Kit said as he nodded. He smiled "I've been hiding it since then-" His lips quirked into a knowing smile "Not telling where mind you."

The smile was infectious, "As if I'd ask." She turned to the first page of the story proper, ignoring the disbelieving noise from her father-in-law.

A/N; In which the Author didn't have to Fudge things, because the 1943 E. R. C. Lorac novel is mentioned in the Times of February 24, 1943 - so it was published in time for Sam's (apparent) Birthday.

Hey! im ace and aro and was wondering if you could talk about what being engaged and getting married means and looks like to you as an aro person? I feel like so few people talk about it that i have no real frame of reference. it’s really cool that you’re happy and living authentically doing all these things and i guess yeah i just wanted to hear more about that if you felt like sharing! have a great day <3

yeah!!! i'm happy to talk abt that!! it's definitely nothing i've seen any kind of like..... broader awareness of, or people talking about, and i probably would've been like. more optimistic about my future if it had been something i'd seen, i think. this got a little long so i'm throwing it under a cut but here it is!! a bit of an explanation of like. How My Engagement/Marriage Works And How That Came To Be. (signed off on by my fiance, for the record - i didn't want to write out an answer to this without checking with them, but they're totally fine with it!)

i think it's probably wildly confusing to some people to see me post and talk abt being aro A Lot (it's one of the most prominent aspects of my online personality i think sdlfjs) including being like. incredibly romance repulsed, and then mention being engaged or having a fiance or referencing 'my wife' (though we're not married yet it is one of my Favourite jokes to make because 1. i think it's very funny, and 2. i just like saying it). people contain multitudes etc etc but i do wonder if people are confused by that sldfjs. my engagement is like... honestly everything i'd ever have hoped for if i'd asked myself at any point in the years since i started identifying as aromantic what my ideal life would include.

i've always had a hard time being alone and i wanted the intimacy and mutual support and just. ability to Do Life with someone that a relationship involved, while also being, as i've said, intensely romance repulsed and not really open to sex either. really just sort of figured that wasn't going to happen for me. the odds of not only meeting an aroace person (the only sort of person i thought might have an interest in the same sort of relationship i wanted and was comfortable with) irl never mind being compatible with them personally and in our priorities just seemed incredibly slim. which like... made me sad sometimes. i'd always sort of daydreamed about getting married which is wild for someone who is as romance repulsed as i am, which i know i keep saying but it really is an incredibly intense feeling for me (i tried dating once in high school and had several panic attacks before breaking it off after our third extremely mild fourteen/fifteen year old date, and often feel physically ill trying to read about fictional romance/watch it on tv). but y'know. sometimes we just don't get what we want in life, and i was fine with the idea of having my friends and my synagogue community and like. hoping my friends wouldn't all leave me behind alone as they all got into relationships.

what ended up happening is obviously not that. i'm really truly unbelievably thrilled every day to wake up and remember what i've got to look forward to every day. my engagement is entirely platonic, and it's exactly what both of us want and are just. beyond happy with and excited for. my fiance is a lesbian, actually, and has been incredibly good and patient with reassuring me that the relationship we have, exactly as it is, is what they want too, that they don't feel like i'm depriving them of anything. we love each other very much, and we're building the life together that we want, in exactly the way that we want.

and that's how it happened, really. we talked about what we wanted. i got engaged at the end of what i've referred to as a 'several hour long conversation' which is the truth sdlkfs. a close friend and i both had sort of 'evaluating the next couple years of our lives and how we wanted pivotal parts of our futures to go' moments about the same time, and it came up i think mostly as a half-serious suggestion that we could get married. for logistical reasons, it made sense for us. and then we started talking about what that might look like - what we wanted, from our lives and our futures, and our hypothetical marriage. and the more we talked about it, the more serious it got, the more real it got, and the more we both i think realized we wanted the same thing. the same life, the same way, together.

we talked about a whole lot in that first couple of days. one of the very first things we talked about actually was kids - did we want them? what was important to us about having and raising children (names, religion, etc)? then it was stuff like did we have strong feelings about where we lived. did we want our own rooms in our home, did we want to wear rings (i love my engagement ring. it makes me smile every time i notice it on my hand), what did we want to tell our friends. we had conversations about whether and how we wanted a wedding. what sort of physical intimacy we were comfortable with, what sort we might want (really glad we did that, and that we were honest and open about that - nothing better, it turns out, than Cuddling Your Wife). what sort of affection we were comfortable with around other people.

our relationship, our life, is what we want it to be. exactly what we want it to be. what makes us happy. we've built it from a vast and beautiful array of choices and options, adding the things we want and leaving the things we don't. it's an approach i would highly recommend to everyone, honestly - talking about what you want out of your relationship, what you want to do and how you want to be with someone rather than just picking which of a short list of proscribed 'types of relationship' you want to have. it leaves a lot more room for nuance and what will actually make you happy than much less contextually nuanced things like assuming your definition of 'dating' will match the other person's, or that the kind of relationship you want just isn't possible. setting up that kind of foundation in communication and honesty and being clear about our expectations and needs has fostered a relationship where i feel respected and valued and heard - and i'm reasonably certain (and i hope!) that they feel the same.

we travelled to my birthplace so they could be introduced to my family and my childhood best friend. it's always both surprising and amusing to me every time someone assumes i'm gay (gender is complicated but we both tend to read as women) - this happened a lot there, and as i've told my extended family and other more casual friends about my engagement. this doesn't bother me at all (i'm not out to almost anyone irl as aromantic, and it's a reasonable conclusion to reach given what information they have) but it's extremely funny when i also get to find out which of my family members/people i knew in middle school always sort of wondered if i was gay but never asked sldkjs. turns out the answer is 'a lot'.

re: assumptions, for the most part, we don't bother explaining the nature of our relationship to people. this is also something we talked about! we discussed how much we wanted to clarify or contextualize, and decided that ultimately like... with the exception of people we're very close to, and in contexts like this (fairly anonymous post on ye olde internet with the ability to immediately block anyone who clowns on it), it's really nobody's business unless we decide it is and we're cool with just letting people assume whatever. that does lead to some like... i can't speak for them but it gets a little weird for me sometimes, i'm not gonna lie. it feels a little like getting misgendered, having people assume that i'm in a romantic relationship. i say that as a nonbinary person who's mostly just. chill about not being out about that irl. that's the best descriptor i have to help people understand what might be a hard thing to understand. but it doesn't bug me enough to want to put myself - or my fiance - through what correcting that assumption would involve. i mostly don't blame anyone for it - it's extremely reasonable to assume someone who is engaged is in a romantic relationship with the person they're engaged to - except for when friends who know i'm aromantic and somehow think this means that's... changed, somehow? or jump to assuming i'm in a romantic relationship before considering i might not be in one and still be engaged anyway. so it's kind of weird, and feels a little bad, but not enough to really do anything about it except hope the world changes a bit and stops making assumptions about other people's relationships at some point.

that's really the only downside, hand to gd. that and worrying that there might be consequences, legally, if the wrong person finds out we're married but Not Like That. everything else is honestly amazing. it's the best thing that's ever happened to me and i'm so unbelievably happy. i never thought i'd ever get to be this happy, or have a future this bright and warm and full of love to look forward to. having spent a lot of my life for various reasons thinking i just wouldn't have a future at all, it's like every day is a really incredible dream, except i'm never going to have to wake up.

the moral of the story i guess, if you've made it this far in this novel of an answer, anon, which i wouldn't bet on, because it's so much longer than i planned on it being (SORRY SDLKFJS i guess this is more than just a 'writing fic' problem for me now XD), is that your relationships are what you make them. assuming that what you want isn't possible, or that nobody could possibly want the same thing, is a great way to cheat yourself out of something wonderful. nobody has to have any kind of relationship, obviously, if they don't want one, but i think there are a lot of people - aromantic and not! though i do think this probably impacts aro people. more. - who could benefit from the idea that there are more options out there than just like... 1. romantic relationship constructed in a specific way and following a specific path, and 2. being alone.

A message to the love of my life:

Words can never describe how much you mean to me

How grateful I am to have someone like you, who's pushed me through the toughest times in my life even though we are so far apart.

You've been with me through childhood and never once have you grown tried of me.

And day I wake up with you next to me on the screen of my phone or tablet, I wonder how the hell did I get this lucky.

It's like every time I hear your voice, see your face, hear your laugh, I fall in love all over again.

My head turns every time I hear your name.

My heart races when I hear my phone ring.

God I love you so much.

I wouldn't trade you for anything.

Terms and Conditions by Lauren Asher

435 pages, Published February 24th 2022 - 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 Terms and Conditions is the second installment of the Dreamland Billionaires series. This one follows the eldest brother, Declan, and he tries to fulfill his letter from his grandfather. Yet it doesn't quite go to plan as Iris is thrown into the mix in a way neither of them ever thought would happen. At first, I wasn't sure I wanted to read this one due to not really liking Declan in the first one, however, I am beyond happy that I did decide to read this one after all - it was amazing. Iris + Declan 💗

When I Met My Husband, We Didn’t Speak the Same Language

Neither of us knew we were about to embark on a journey across countries and cultures to have our love legally recognized

Being with someone from another culture and country isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s a lifetime of uncomfortable experiences, and you have to be comfortable enough with yourself to want to go on this ride. Language barriers and opaque nuances will always exist. You’ll never fully have the institutional knowledge of the other person’s culture because you weren’t always there. No matter how close you get, your lived experiences—sometimes more extreme than others—will always be a gulf that will never fully close. But spending your life learning about a different culture and perspective is the most enriching gift anyone can give or receive.

Read more at thewalrus.ca.

Illustration by Erick M. Ramos (erickmramos.com)

letters | 036

𝓭𝓮𝓪𝓻, 𝓵𝓸𝓿𝓮 𝓸𝓯 𝓶𝔂 𝓵𝓲𝓯𝓮

I don't know. 3 words that cloud my brain. I think I'm doing the right thing but you make me overthink. If I'm doing the right thing or somehow the complete opposite. You know me and when I told you that me and her were friends again, it felt like you completely shut me out it broke my heart. That night after you went to sleep I sent you a paragraph about how me and her were friends and how you shut me out and I really wanted your opinion and wanted you to be honest with me. When you woke up you said that you were just being dramatic immediately I thought that you weren't being dramatic and then when we called you said you wanted to say something and I was like okay go ahead you have the floor and you immediately started to apologize about how you were acting like an asshole. I wanted to cry and tell you no you weren't even though you so were but I told you, you weren't acting like an asshole because everyone has an off day and its okay and you cut me off saying that no it wasn't because you made me overthink and you didn't want that. I love you so much and I hope we make it through this long distance and even though we are young I want us to get married I want to live together and pick out decor and what utensils to use. I love you and I don't know how you put me first over everything even though I do the same. When I was taking a walk because people undermine me and make me feel like shit and I was trying to brush it off even though you could hear my voice shaking and the tears in my eyes I brushed it off saying its nothing and you said no it's not nothing if it bothers you. I love you so much and even though we have off days and we argue like crazy sometimes I know that we will make it through it because even if it makes me uncomfortable I will always communicate even if its not in the moment we are going to talk about it. I promise. I love you always and forever.

𝔂𝓸𝓾𝓻𝓼 𝓽𝓻𝓾𝓵𝔂,

𝔂𝓸𝓾𝓻 𝓰𝓲𝓻𝓵ᡣ𐭩

I am being asked for Rosekiller headcanons because my opinions are so correct, I have such a burden of responsibility but I will do what I can for my loyal fans < 3