05.21.2020
Emily
We live in a weird time. Despite the polarization that permeates almost everything we do these days, I think we can all agree on this. The world hasn’t seen a pandemic of this nature in nearly 100 years and no one knows what information to trust or who to listen to. These are all really scary things that can bring a looming shadow of darkness that you can’t quite seem to shake. At least for me. But when things start to get dark in my life, I generally start looking as hard as I can for the tiniest bit of light I can find. This can be anything from a cute animal video, expertly made avocado toast, or even just a hug from someone you love. For the last 8 months, my tiny bit of light has been Jay.
On September 13th, 2019, I met the love of my life. We can go more into that story in another post but the point is, for the first 6 months of our relationship we didn’t spend more than 3 days apart. We started living together within 3 months (1 month actually but we didn’t move all my stuff to Jay’s apartment until 3 months) and were barely farther than 3 feet apart the entire time we shared a bedroom (if you don’t count school and work.) All this to say that we are very very close (most of the time literally) so on March 27th, 2020 when Jay’s mom called and told us that she was going to pick Jay up in a week and take him to their house almost 300 miles away, I was heartbroken.
At the time, we had been quarantining alone in our apartment for 2 weeks to protect Jay’s suppressed immune system. We completely cut off our access to the outside world and in doing so strengthened our relationship even more through cooking dinner together every night, talking about how the pandemic was affecting us, and watching lots and lots of Love Island. Even though the outside world was filled with uncertainty and fear, in our little bubble we were happy. I know that it might sound weird that we were so fulfilled staying inside, but for two mostly introverted people, quarantine was a dream. The plan was that we were going to stay there, in our perfect bubble, until either it was safe enough to venture out or it got bad enough that we had to go stay with my parents.
After the call, we just sat for a while. Not knowing what to think or say to each other. But we knew that we had a week left before our potentially indefinite separation. Until the next morning when we got another call from Jay’s mom. She was coming that night and leaving with Jay in the morning. Jay was taking all his stuff and leaving the apartment and never coming back. My already broken heart was now completely shocked. The love of my life was already being ripped away from me in a week but now Jay was going to be leaving in less than 24 hours. But there wasn’t any time to worry about it because we had an entire apartment full of things we needed to pack ASAP. I needed to pack up my things as well because if Jay wasn’t returning to the apartment I wouldn’t be either.
I’m going to skip over the next part because it was mostly cleaning and crying and, to be honest with you it wasn’t very eventful. Once Jay left I was left to clean the rest of the apartment and wait for my parents to come with the U-haul. We packed up my stuff (and Jay’s and my kitten Koa) and hit the road. Leaving the apartment was really hard for me, harder than I expected it to be. That little apartment was my first ever venture living away from my parents. It was where Jay and I had our first date. Our first home together. Where we raised our kitten. I know this might sound very over-dramatic but at the time, this is how it felt. Still feels to a certain extent. Every moment we shared together in there seemed like it was floating away as I locked the door for the last time. I wish I could say things got better from there, but unfortunately, they wouldn’t turn around until much later.
The first few days were especially hard. I remember feeling like I had just been through a horrible break up but being able to talk to the person I had “broken up with” definitely helped with the emotional mess I was in. For the next few weeks we zoomed every day and texted almost constantly and tried to plot the whole time for a way to get back together again however, every time we would come up with a plan, it didn’t end up working out because of this, that, and the other thing. Every time we had a set date of when we would see each other, I would get so excited but there was a part of me that always asked “Is this the right decision? Are you putting the love of your life in grave danger just because you can’t go a few months without seeing him? If something happened, it would be your fault. Can you deal with that?” The questions repeated over and over again and they still repeat as I’m writing this. Sometimes there’s no way to know if you’ve made the right decision until you find out what the consequences are, and I was willing to take that risk. So was Jay. And eventually after 50 days of separation, we were reunited. If only for 2 weeks.
N o v e m b e r 