As I write this article, I’m sitting alone in a crowded airport sipping on an overpriced margarita and eating warm pretzel bites. I’m waiting to board a plane that will take me over five hundred miles away from my long distance partner of almost three years. He lives in the Northeast and I live all the way on the Southeastern coast of the US.
After nearly two agonizing years of long distance, our next visit will be our last. Not because we’re breaking up- we’re closing the gap, moving in together, and getting engaged! It’s hard to believe that it’s all actually happening after so much time planning and so many “almosts” that fell through just after I’d begun to get my hopes up.
When we met, my partner was 28 and I was 27. He was a PhD student taking part in a year-long medical residency at a nearby hospital. I was an academic librarian working at a local university. We matched on Bumble and hit it off instantly; our first conversation was about our shared love of burnt marshmallows. Our first date was at a brewery of my choosing. Little did I know how bad the gnats would be and how desperate I was to act cool so he didn’t know I was being eaten alive by bug bites. After that date, we quickly fell into a comfortable existence with each other, something I had struggled unsuccessfully to find for my entire adult life. I started opening up to him as our relationship grew and we began to talk about the future, one we were increasingly sure we wanted to explore together.
But hanging over our heads the entire time was a countdown. Because he was a resident, he only had a year before he had to move back to his home state. I started a countdown on my phone and watched it go down as the days passed. Every lunch date and Saturday at the beach meant we were one day closer to saying goodbye until one day, the clock reached zero. I drove over to his apartment and helped him pack boxes of t-shirts and coffee cups. I cried into a takeout container of Italian food on my couch the next day as I watched him drive away.
As I sit here, I’m reflecting on our relationship and the unique challenges we’ve faced. Looking back, there are a few things I wish I could go back and tell myself—things that might help someone else going through the same thing.
- Put less pressure on yourself and you’ll enjoy the visits so much more! Because my partner and I saw each other relatively rarely, we always felt like every visit had to be perfect. We would fill our days with trips to the zoo, new restaurants, and overnight trips. It sometimes felt like we had to fit a month’s worth of date activities into a single long weekend, which was impossible and exhausting! Although I don’t regret all of our adventures, I think a few more quiet nights on the couch would have done our busy selves good.
- Always have the next visit planned. I personally am a major planner. I hate not knowing what is going to happen next. Before my partner and I parted ways, we made a commitment to always, always have the next trip planned and booked. This made things
so much easier on me when it came time to part ways because there was never any uncertainty about when we would be together again. - Take care of yourself. This can mean different things for different people; a day at the spa, trying a new recipe, or drinks with friends. For me, it meant having a routine for after our visits ended. I always spend the day after I get home from a trip cleaning, grocery shopping, and meal prepping. It makes me feel productive and like I’m starting fresh, which keeps me from staying in a slump for too long.
If you’re in a long distance relationship right now, keep this in mind:
it’s okay to miss them so much it makes it hard to know how you could possibly make it to the next visit. It’s okay to cry in the airport on your way home. And it’s also okay to be joyously happy, even when it still hurts sometimes.
You don’t need to have all the answers. You don’t need a perfect plan. You just need two people willing to do the work, share the load, and believe that what you have is worth the effort. If you’re both in it, you never have to be alone.
