We’re living in the middle of a future history lesson — there is no doubt about that. Our lives have been interrupted and displaced. For those of us with significant others, we are now basically in a long-distance relationship, even if we live in the same city. I’ve been with my boyfriend for about four years. We actually lived in different states for two years of that time. We are no stranger to what this feels like but nonetheless it’s difficult. Now that we finally live in the same state and city again, we’ve grown accustomed to spontaneous lunch dates or having a movie day together. All of that came to a crashing halt when the city of San Antonio officials ordered citizens to shelter-in-place.
My number one concern for us when this happened was not whether or not we’d be able to handle this, but if he would finish the puzzle we started together by himself. Having already experienced not seeing each other regularly, I know we will get through this but it doesn’t make it any less difficult. We are both balancing our own online course loads, extracurriculars and suddenly being at home with our entire families all the time. So we’ve had to figure out what this is going to look like for us. And it doesn’t look like Facetiming all the time or even daily. For us, this looks like taking time to intentionally check in on one another. This isn’t just a “how is your day,” we ask each other how we are feeling and what the other might need. We are trying to keep our communication open and strong. We’re also planning little things to look forward to, like dinner at our favorite local spot. It’s also blowing up each other’s twitter DMs with memes and videos shamelessly.
Anxieties are running high for everyone. It’s easy to get annoyed when someone isn’t responding quickly and start an argument. Maybe I’m speaking from personal experience on that one but it doesn’t help. At the end of the day, it’s just about staying connected and making sure we both feel supported.