Long Distance, One Day at a Time
I told her so many times how I’m anxious of the fact that she’s taller than me, yet she insists that she should be the little spoon when we cuddle. She reassured me that the difference in height should not be far off and I might be overthinking it. After driving for nine hours through winding cliff face and ocean side roads, I finally got to confirm that she was right: I am not that short when standing next to her.
So goes our first “date”, which is to say, the first time we see each other outside the screen. The layers of unorthodoxy of our relationship, when stacked on top of each other, present different challenges every day. For all intents and purposes, we are an online dating couple, having “met” on Twitter and connected later on Tinder. Ours is also a long-distance relationship: initially, we lived in different countries and now we’re based in different cities. I consider the distance more consequential than the fact that we have a seven-year age gap and are in a same-sex relationship. Never mind that she wasn’t alive yet during the best part of the 90s; I can live with that.
Going into this relationship meant acquainting myself with the horrors of LDR. I ate up every forum or Facebook group post of people similarly situated and otherwise cringeworthy listicles like Top 10 Date Ideas for Long Distance Relationships. I read reflective essays of the many lovers who failed and the very few who succeeded. As someone who has extensively sought intimate relationships in the past decade, the last thing I want now that I’m 30 is complication. But I guess the mystery of how love works never goes away no matter what phase you are in life. To my heart that seeks shelter with its newfound healing, nowhere is safest but here and now with her.
I have no new insight on how to make LDR or online dating work when essentially most are now forced into the same arrangements because of the pandemic. I learned how to carefully punctuate my sentences, position myself in the best angle for a video call, pick out the right emojis to go with my replies. Text exchanges get heated, always ending with apologies and I love yous because all we have are phantom hands to hold. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that a great injustice has been done to me by the universe. After all, I cultivated a relationship based on respect, trust, and kindness. We make do with what we have, and what we have is commitment to make this work for as long as we can.
The pandemic wedging distance between us is not going away anytime soon. I am alone every day for the most part in my room. After trading our good night messages, or when we have to end a call and turn in for the day, I am left with a dark screen on a brick, holding on to promises of days to come.
I have talked to her for almost a year now. The time I spent holding her is disproportionate to the length and intensity of longing. Which, sometimes, I think is unfair. All I have are two days’ worth of physical contact. I refuse to give up, mostly because love stories are built on choices. Staying with her is a conscious decision I make every day.
I single out the memory of waking up next to her, holding my face, telling me she’ll remember that moment for the rest of her life. I take a deep breath. I believe her.