I'm a morning person if I wake up after seven thirty, and it's the same routine most days. Hit the snooze, check my phone, say good morning to my boyfriend, Quinn. For the first week in June, instead of texting Quinn good morning, I could just roll over and say it to him. I had moved out of my house and temporarily into his the day after we graduated high school. In a lot of ways, it was the best thing for us, because it was a week of being together, all day, all night.
Every morning he was there to help me start my day with words of encouragement of how I was going to do so much and accomplish a lot, even if it was just doing a load of laundry or making it out of bed at all during the day, he was there to tell me that that was something to feel good about, to feel accomplished with the little tasks. As someone who has anxiety and bouts of depression, having someone who's going to tell you that if all you did today was get out of bed and write a paragraph on a new piece, you still did get out of bed, you're now a whole paragraph closer to being ready to publish that article. And on your good days they're there to tell you that you did so much! You've checked off everything, or almost everything, off your to-do list! Quinn is that person for me, and him being able to hold me when I was crying uncontrollably over my mother, or the inevitable countdown in the background of our week-long honeymoon coming to an end, was a great thing to have.
Having to say goodbye was tough, and I cried a little, but I didn't want my dad or Quinn to see me upset, so I saved the tears for later: for after moving in boxes into the house and putting together furniture and trying to settle into my new home. I saved the crying for a while, the first night wasn't too bad. Quinn and I stayed on the phone until we fell asleep. For the first week I was okay, because I was distracting myself with unpacking and getting my life together and finding a job, enrolling in school, developing future plans for visits with Quinn. Once all of that was in place though, I had less and less on my to-do list to keep me distracted from the fact that the first night I had dinner without him I had called him to come downstairs. I had forgotten that he was 120 miles and almost 3 hours away. I had forgotten then he wasn't going to be kissing me goodnight, or good morning for a long time. This was the downside of spending a week together. We didn't think about the consequences, about how much we'd miss each other. We were just enjoying our time together.
Up until 2 nights before I left for Virginia, we hadn't talked really seriously about what is was going to be like when I moved. We had discussed it briefly, but never at length. And so we did, and we fought, and I cried, a lot. I told him I was scared we were each going to find other people, people close to us distance wise, someone we could see and hangout with and touch everyday. I worried we would lose the intimacy we had. I don't mean just sex, but the inside jokes, being able to just lay in bed together on our phones not saying a word, the comfortable silence between us, going on drives just because we could, holding hands, holding each other. These things tend to matter a lot in relationships. I was terrified one of us wouldn't be able to handle not experiencing it everyday. Thankfully, it hasn't been an issue at all.
I've come to learn through our short visits seeing each other that we have a new level of intimacy that's much different than before. We stay on the phone with each other every night now until we fall asleep. We text each other all day, and send pictures of things we see that remind us of one another. We have a deeper understanding of the other person's emotions because we can't physically be with each other and see how we're feeling, so communication has gotten so much better and easier. In long distance relationships, it can be easy for things to fall apart or start to unravel slowly. Relationships require work, whether there's distance between the two (or more) of you, or none at all. You learn to work with another person, and listen, and communicate. Having 120 miles between us has made the conversations we have deeper, more meaningful. When I tell Quinn about my day, I know he's listening, because he's more engaged than ever before in what I'm saying, and the same goes for me when he's talking. We really treasure the days we can hold each other, and truly be together in any way we want, because we're both there. There isn't any distance on those days, physical or mental.
It gets hard sometimes, not being able to physically be with your partner. You want to hold them and kiss them and be able to comfort them in the same ways you could before, and you can't now. There's a feeling of having lost a part of your relationship temporarily, and that's scary too. You wonder if it will be the same when you can see each other everyday again. Will you still crave each other as much as you do now? Will you still treasure each cuddle, kiss, hug? Do you still remember every curve and freckle of their body? How have they changed? You know the importance of intimate moments like these much more when there's a countdown in the back of both your heads that the weekend is going to end soon, even if it's just started. You don't want to think about the months of time before the next visit. So you don't, and you just immerse yourself into the fleeting moments with them.
Being in a long distance relationship has made me change as a person. I feel stronger, and more confident in my abilities to correctly communicate to people. I feel better about myself, my body, my mind. I still have off days like everyone else, and it is very blatant that Quinn and I can't help each other in the same ways as before, but we work at it, together. Loving someone is a ridiculous thing to do. It's wonderful, and amazing, and sometimes you think "what if they leave me," but it's something I would do over and over again with Quinn, will do over and over again. The fear of it ending, of losing this bond you have created with another person over the course of weeks, or months, or years can be crippling and take a toll on your relationship if you focus on it. If you don't have a partner that will reassure you, and comfort you, then it's not going to work. But if you both put in work for each other, and grow together as a couple, and separately as people, you can make it. You can have your fairytale ending, and the distance between you or the time it takes to get together again won't matter. You'll still have each other at the end of everyday.
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