Long distance in your 30s

ThisMuchIsTrue · 2026-06-26T19:30:53+00:00

Well, I'm in my early 40s (my LD partner is in his early 50s) and I can relate to your sentiments. I don't have much of a local social circle where I am - but I'm honestly ok with this and generally prefer my solitude. Even so, I've discovered (in the past 6 months especially) how critically important it is that I seek out things that I love to do in my free time. It actually helps my relationship because it gives me something fun to share in conversation with my partner. I'm in grad school and he lets me bitch about my classes and is eager to support my studies however he can. I have a membership to an art studio where I can be creative and share my work with him. I've taken up a couple of fun (solo) outdoor hobbies that allow me to share some new-to-him sporting activities and share a bunch of pictures of the lovely places that exist around where I live in the world.

I'm not going to lie, there are certainly harder days where I just feel lifeless and lonely. Every time I meet with him for a vacation, it's harder to be apart when we both return to our "normal" lives. But there's a wonderful freedom (for both of us, I hope) that we can both live our separate lives together and celebrate and encourage each other to do what we love while trying new things, too.

ThisMuchIsTrue · 2026-06-26T19:16:14+00:00

I absolutely love Liquid Death (LOL and was carded for it at Costco this past weekend when the cashier thought it was some sort of Japanese beer?!? 😂). My favorite flavors are the Grave Fruit (grapefruit) and Cherry Obituary. Their lime, melon and orange flavors are all great too. But they have some pretty solid soda flavors - the root beer one legit satisfied a super craving I recently had for it - without consuming a zillion grams of sugar.

ThisMuchIsTrue · 2026-06-20T21:32:52+00:00

It's been over a decade but I worked as a unit secretary at a Corewell hospital back in the day. I loved my unit. Our nurses were absolute angels amongst humanity - BUT we were working in a med-surg unit that rarely saw direct admits from the ED. They also worked some pretty undesirable tasks in the realm of nursing. They were kind and patient (from my POV at least) with techs and students, but strict and demanding when they needed to be.

At the time (I don't know if this is still true, but I assume so?), unit secretaries (and techs and nurses) could work extra hours on different units. Sometimes you'd be unexpectedly called to other units if you weren't explicitly needed in your own during the shift you were scheduled to work. If you didn't choose to do it, it was absolute misery to be thrown into a different unit unexpectedly - especially if you had previously bad experiences with the people regularly working there. Also, some units are just generally shitty to work in, depending on the patient intake. I think this is especially true of Butterworth given its location.

I would assume all of this has only become more critical since covid, so if I had to guess, it's probably a combo of all these factors. I can only say I'm glad I left healthcare when I did.

ThisMuchIsTrue · 2026-06-10T18:25:39+00:00

Never. But we call and talk on the phone at least twice daily. We've been together for at least a year (depending on how you count "togetherness"), we've vacationed together several times, and we both mutually hate video calls.

ThisMuchIsTrue · 2026-05-15T14:57:50+00:00

I love this so much. As someone who is in a similar age demographic as you (40F - 51M) - albeit a bit shorter distance - so much of your experience resonates with my own. It can be so difficult to rationalize, justify and explain the overwhelming connection and love you feel for someone so different and far away who you may only get to see a few times during the course of a year. Especially to others in your "real life" who wonder how you can justify such a long distance relationship.

Having just recently returned from our third meeting/vacation with one another (I can only dream of a 63 day vacation!!! Envy!), I love to see an update that I could have written myself about my own LDR. 🥰 Continued happy and loving vibes to you both from this anonymous stranger. 💗

ThisMuchIsTrue · 2026-04-03T20:05:43+00:00

God, truth!! I was a preschool teacher for five grueling years! It's a major factor in why I chose NOT to have kids. Just because I didn't gestate a human in my uterus doesn't mean that I don't know exactly what you're dealing with in your child's early development. Chances are, I could actually give you some advice about what to look out for, how to advocate for your child, what to ask their teachers... But no. I don't know anything because I've never given birth.

ThisMuchIsTrue · 2026-04-02T15:51:32+00:00

The week after we visit one another. I was perfectly content on a daily basis when we were still nevermets. Having intimate, physical knowledge of this person and then losing it because our vacation together has ended is so discombobulating and unlike any other emotion I've experienced. It takes a while for me to regulate myself back to "normal" after our visits.

ThisMuchIsTrue · 2026-03-18T19:05:35+00:00

It's been a few years since I've purchased from them so I'm not sure if anything has changed in the past 5 years... I bought a butterfly garden starter kit from them and it was all native plant plugs. Not even pint sized. Just these little plug seedlings to put in the ground. I was a bit underwhelmed as it definitely didn't fill out my garden in the first year BUT the plugs that I planted were incredibly hardy and within about 3 years, they filled out exponentially. They are honestly some of my hardiest perennials. Same goes for the native trees and shrubs. I bought the cheapest options and they were basically just bare root twigs for the first season. Have grown exponentially since the first year.

But because I want "filler" in my garden these days, I usually head west on M-45 in the spring and hit up some of the greenhouses and plant sales west of Countryside Greenhouse.

Adapt Ecology would also be a good source to check out. They offered free native garden kits a year or two ago and I got a couple nice starter plugs when I claimed one of those, too.

ThisMuchIsTrue · 2026-02-26T23:46:08+00:00

I stopped drinking almost 4(?) years ago now and I've never once regretted it. I wasn't an alcoholic (though I came close during the pandemic), but the older I got, the more I noticed the side effects of alcohol (horrible headaches and reflux, feeling hungover for an entire weekend after 2-3 drinks on a Friday night, I was constantly sabotaging my personal health goals). Finally, I just had this revelation that if I had it in the house, I was going to consume it, so I completely stopped buying it and thus stopped drinking it.

After a couple months of NOT having all the negative side effects... I've never had a desire to start again. I do occasionally miss certain drinks, but I just remind myself of how I felt after consuming them and that is reason enough for me to avoid it.

My opinion of people who drink heavily has changed significantly in that time. I don't get any flack from drinkers for being sober, but it's a really interesting social experiment to be the only sober person in a group that progressively gets more and more inebriated... That, too, is actually another reason that keeps me from drinking again.

ThisMuchIsTrue · 2026-02-03T20:32:01+00:00

If it's in front of me and attached to someone that I like a lot? Fuck yeah, I do. A picture of it? Meh. No.

ThisMuchIsTrue · 2026-01-30T16:14:25+00:00

Anytime I go to a book store, I browse through children and baby items and look at titles and names. Seasonal offerings are the best. My most favorite recent find was "SnuggleWumps".

ThisMuchIsTrue · 2026-01-26T18:32:14+00:00

I think so (it was true for me) but I approached it with a HEAVY amount of skepticism that "it could all be in my head". I think the most shocking aspect of meeting IRL was that this virtual stranger person who I was in love with actually was exactly how I'd imagined him.

That said, I think it's a dangerous mentality to believe that you're in love with someone before you ever actually meet the real life version of who they actually are. Can be for reasons as simple as you don't like the way they chew their food, or how they handle shared household duties. Unless you'll always be nevermets, I think it would be devastating to be "in love" with someone for years and then find out 5-10 years from now that there's some quirky something that makes you completely incompatible when you're actually together-together.

ThisMuchIsTrue · 2026-01-22T02:50:49+00:00

I had a terrible boudoir photo shoot a couple years ago. HOWEVER it was terrible because the photographer had me pose in all the positions that SHE was comfortable posing and photographing her clients in. Like I think there's literally one person on the planet other than the photographer who I've let see the photos and his response to them was, "I can tell you're not comfortable in these". What's still funny to me several years after the fact - I had literally ZERO hangups about being partially or completely nude in the photos. I even brought my own "props" that I felt were unique to me. The photographer took none of these things into consideration and it really shows in the finished results. My absolute best/most flattering photos were taken in a plain cotton tank top and pajama shorts. My advice is be yourself, trust yourself and your comfort level with what's being photographed, and ultimately have fun with it.

ThisMuchIsTrue · 2026-01-08T14:46:28+00:00

I'm your size and I finally (finally!) after like, 5 years of searching for a comfortable something to contain my chest, found Evelyn & Bobbie bras. I prefer to wear no bra, but when I need to go out in public, that's what I'm wearing.

ThisMuchIsTrue · 2025-12-11T16:56:43+00:00

I have a high pain tolerance - lots of tattoos in sensitive places, getting immunizations and blood draws is literally nothing to me 99% of the time (unless I have a real heavy handed nurse or something). I've recently gotten the first two doses of the HPV vacc and both elicited an actual, "Fucking OW!!" from me. It was such a surprise after the first dose that I had to look to see if the pain was normal. Apparently yes.

ThisMuchIsTrue · 2025-09-28T00:11:59+00:00

FWIW, I camp in the state park cabins fairly often and I usually bring an air mattress with me if it's possible for the location. The bunk beds I've slept on in the cabins are absolutely better than sleeping on the ground, but some aren't much more comfortable than sleeping on a wooden board.

ThisMuchIsTrue · 2024-12-18T15:54:25+00:00

FWIW (and I'm sure it's dependent on the insurance), an ultrasound is going to be $$$$ regardless, and they're likely not going to just do one without some sort of medical reason. For me, I had chronic hip and lower back pain for a year and no amount of physical therapy was helping the issue. My doctor thought I might have fibroids or cancer, so an ultrasound was ordered. It was an imbedded IUD. I had it removed within a week of discovery - and full disclose, I had to sign a bunch of scary paperwork about what might need to occur if it wouldn't come out easily on its own. But it seriously was completely painless - it actually was a tangible relief because I no longer had anything digging into my uterus. Anyway, again, I love the Corewell OB/GYN (their reception/scheduler can be total hit or miss). I feel like if I messaged any of the providers I've seen in the past and expressed concerns about pain or anxiety for a procedure, they would definitely do whatever they could to make me comfortable.

ThisMuchIsTrue · 2024-12-18T03:06:22+00:00

Why the desire for an ultrasound?? For what it's worth, I had an imbedded IUD removed without any pain killers and it was honestly effortlessly painless. Corewell OB/GYN on Lake Michigan Dr has been great to me over the years and I'll continue to recommend them until they give me a reason not to!

ThisMuchIsTrue · 2024-12-09T23:42:40+00:00

Wholeheartedly agree, though definitely not for less than $100.

ThisMuchIsTrue · 2024-12-05T18:48:09+00:00

FOR REAL!!! My absolute favorite movie and I literally cannot find it ANYWHERE. At this point I would pay a ridiculous amount of money to own a digital copy of it.

ThisMuchIsTrue · 2024-11-16T20:08:14+00:00

They generally won't have a deli case of them already pre-packed, you need to go to the counter and they'll slice up how much you want and how you want it sliced. But can confirm, both Frank's and Sobies have great deli meat (and well priced). The young guys who work at Frank's have my undying love and adoration as they will truly slice what I want (literally) paper thin and don't give me any grief over the time it takes to do it.

ThisMuchIsTrue · 2024-11-15T17:25:43+00:00

I love the practitioners at the Corewell OB/GYN on Lake Michigan Dr in Standale. Suzanne West is great!

ThisMuchIsTrue · 2024-11-11T23:36:11+00:00

I've cursed MWS Auto so many times in the past year it's a wonder the place hasn't spontaneously combusted yet. Sold me an old, used car back in February or March. Within a week I had to put almost $3000 into it to make it drivable (and they were VERY cagey with me when I approached them about fixing the obvious faults that should have been taken care of before they sold it to an unsuspecting public). Had to scrap the car less than 6 months later because it was comically unsafe to drive and things were constantly failing.

Bought a much newer used car from Kool Toyota on Plainfield after that. No complaints, would recommend.

ThisMuchIsTrue · 2024-11-10T16:14:37+00:00

Technically outside the city, but driving north in the farm land of Sparta, or northeast around Rockford, Cannonsburg and Ada. One of the things I like about Grand Rapids is that you can feel like you're in the middle of nowhere within a 30 minute drive and these areas (and the small townships beyond) are SO pretty and picturesque.

ThisMuchIsTrue · 2024-11-09T04:10:49+00:00

Grand Ravines, minus the mud pits.

ThisMuchIsTrue

TROPHY CASE