Getting Closer

Almost a year since my husband has been closer. An hour drive to see him is still nothing compared to the 5 and a half from before. This last year has been full of getting back to our 'normal'; regular visits, daily phone calls (that are longer than 15 minutes!), bringing packages, etc. With more interaction, though, also came more conflict. More interruptions in my day (that sometimes weren't taken kindly), more being in the 'know' at the home-front (more about that another time :) But also more conversations about how to get over those conflicts because, soon, we'll be under one roof (God willing!).

It feels good to have him near, almost like he's here! And now, with the help of technology and of course money, we have found a way to get closer. So, a couple of months ago my husband called and announced that he had finally gotten the long awaited and highly anticipated "TABLET!" It was the cutest thing ever, hearing him talk about the features of this transparent device. He explained that in order for him to get songs, books, etc. on his tablet, he would have to plug into the 'kiosk,' of course, after purchasing said items. I congratulated him and said, "Welcome to the 21st Century.  You've finally arrived at about 2005 or so... definitely getting closer to 2019!" Progress, slow, but it's something. He laughed and joked about his tablet being just like mine. Every time he buys and downloads a new song, he calls me and plays it on the phone. Hearing a faint song on the other side, I guess the song... usually wrong! Most have been from 1990's. It makes sense, he's picking up where he left of and this music speaks to him, to me too (I have them all on my iTunes library). I'm sure though, his songs have cost way more to download than mine did.

Then, recently, he told me that we can email each other. Wow, no more snail-mail... cool! This is the way we found out it works: I buy stamps (10 for $3, 30 for $8.40, 60 for $15 or 100 for $23), then I can either transfer them to him, or email him and pre-pay for his response. Easy enough... well, not really. As I found out, if I want to attach pictures, it costs me 1 stamp per picture in addition to the email stamp :(  There's always a catch with these providers!

All technicalities aside, this is a promising development and this week we started emailing each other. He excitedly reported how he learned to 'copy and paste.' Complaining to one of his dorm-mates about having to write his drafted email all over again (because it was in a different 'place'), he watched as the guy highlighted the text, made it disappear, then reappear in the right place... "slow down, show me how you did that!" he said to him. And now, he can copy and paste like pro! He was so proud of himself, too. My first email showed him how to create emojis using regular keyboard characters because their tablets don't have picture emojis. Now he writes me and uses them regularly... real progress. But most of all, emailing has given us a new way to communicate, to get closer to each other. Our messages reach the other in a reasonably short time, so it works quite nicely. Now we need to get the kids in on the action.

The next frontier... video-gram, 30 second videos that we can send him (for now). We haven't tried it yet and I'm sure it will be nothing like face timing, but at least it's something!

We certainly are in a different place than we were one year ago. There is hope in the future and freedom is palpable. The pieces are starting to fall into place, I can just feel it! We are getting closer.