It's been quiet lately. I've been past the point where I drop you a note, saying goodnight at the end of the day. Let a couple of days go by, and I'll call. After that, I just try to wait until you miss me and come back. I notice a quiet, a stillness. I have time to read, I have time to write, I have time I could spend reflecting if I weren't in such a hurry to push past that and do something.

I stay up as late as I please, I make overseas phonecalls at 4 a.m. I start formulating plans for things, but these plans are always more fun when you're in on it, when I can sprawl out across the bed with my phone to my ear, trying to contain my excitement.

It's been quiet, but when it hasn't been, it's been good. Cause we've both been busy, but when we have the time, when we see each other, it's always real nice.

It's a sort of calm I've been hoping to come to, a sort of place I've been hoping to get back to, where I appreciate everything we have instead of aching over everything we don't.

I'd say you bring enough good to my life to last me through the times we're not together, but it's not so much an issue of "lasting through" being apart, when our lives exist this way. So I'll say that you bring brightness to my heart, and that I'm grateful to know you.

And I know now I can do just fine without you, but I also know that even all these miles and months away, in a million subtle ways, you make my life better. You bring me a secret smile.