My summer begins (began?)

It's very strange how much of this summer is like last summer. I'm working here at Dordt again, the same job, only now as a supervisor. I clean Southview and East Campus, which is a lot of work. However, as was the case last year, I am surrounded by really cool people who are just fun to work with and spend the summer with. This makes scrubbing floors in Southview bathrooms and spending my free time on an empty Dordt campus seem much less boring:)

And I'm still dating Nate, but we are at such a different place now. Last year we were just getting to know each other as more than friends. We were spending as much time as we could together (which being summer at Dordt, was quite a lot) and desperately trying to learn about this strange other person. This year, Nate and I are having to learn to say goodbye to each other, a lot. I don't like this lesson, for the record. This whole year we had been able to spend large amounts of time quite close to each other. We saw each other every day, if not several times a day. We chatted about everything, and Nate became my best friend.

Perhaps this wasn't good in a way, because now, after a year, we are learning to not see each other. We are learning not to be able to talk whenever we want about whatever is on our minds. Nate lives only an hour away, but he works and I work. We get up early and go to bed early. If I have a hard day at work, or something silly or fun happens, I can't run and tell him. And he can't tell me. As Nate concluded, we don't realize how very much we miss the other until we see each other again.

But I add to this, as Nate left tonight. The whole night I kept thinking how I wouldn't see him for another night, and I resented all the other people who stole my time with him away. It's not the goodbye that hurts so much, as it is the knowledge of when you next get to say hello.