FIOS has arrived...

And that means that I should (please note the emphasis on "should") be able to renew my pledge to make this blog more than a passing fancy. I make no promises.

In case my prolonged absence had you scratching your noggins, let me ease your minds. I've been busy procuring an apartment (and all of the necessary accoutrement) with a long-time friend recently returned to the US of A after serving overseas. I hadn't seen her in years and suddenly we're living together. It's magnificent. And the place is really coming together, which always helps any transition.

But this new arrangement got me thinking about long-term (long-lasting)/long-distance relationships (of any kind) and why some succeed where others fail. I don't really know why this topic was the station my train of thought decided to break down at, but here I am. And I'm wondering: Is it really as simple as dedication (even one-sided dedication)?

If I were to compile two lists of my relationships (friends, romantic interests and even family), with one list containing the names of people who "made it" and the other a list of those who didn't, I believe the only thing the folks on the first list would have in common would be that one or both of us decided that we were going to make it work and stay in touch, and did. We may have had/have our up and down and periods of extended silence, but in the end an effort was/is made. The end.

I've run it over and over in my brain, and there was invariably a moment in each of my long-term and/or long-distance relationships when one of us made the effort to bug the other person into staying attached. Sadly, most of the time the driving force came from the other person...but that's a topic for a shrink's couch, not my blog.

My point is that my various familial and congenial relationships capable of withstanding the tests of time and space do not succeed because of some inherent trait somehow encoded into the relationship. The people who bothered to email, call or see me with some sort of regularity and sticktoitiveness are the ones with whom I've remained connected.

Am I the only one for whom this holds true? Does it matter?

In the end, I know that I have a network of people to whom I really matter and who really matter to me. What more could I ask for?

Then again, if effort is all it takes, why would any of my relationships fail?

At this, an historic hour in America...

Anything I could say would pale in comparison... to the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Barack Obama, the junior Senator from Illinois, is going to be the 44th President of these United States of America. But, he is more than just a man. He's a fulfillment of a Dream, a Dream that I shared and am incredibly moved and pleased to see come true.

Maybe change is possible after all.