My First Boyfriend Lives 10 Hours Away

As I scribble down my thoughts in a wildly patterned Vera Bradley notebook, I am on a plane taking me further and further away from the guy I not only like as a friend, but have grown to love as a partner. My heart is heavy, not only because the weekend is over and I go back to work tomorrow, but because I won’t be able to hold my boyfriend’s hand or play with his curls for a little while.

Yes, I know that’s cheesy. No, I’m not sorry.

My boyfriend, let’s call him “Inosuke,” (one of his favorite characters from a show we both love) and I have known each other since our college days. We both had joined the same social club, a club that prided itself on its rather nonsensical events. In fact, the night I first met Inosuke, he was wearing a rubber horse mask.

It wasn’t love at first sight or anything, but we hit it off instantly.

Inosuke and I remained good friends throughout my last two years of university, but we lost touch after I graduated. We stayed friends on Facebook and liked each other’s posts every so often, but it wasn’t until we were both made co-captains for a game that our social club held that we were able to fully reconnect. After the game was over, we started playing D&D together. Then we started texting each other almost every day.

It wasn’t until one late night that we admitted we had a crush on each other. I beat him to the punch by about five seconds. Since he lives in Texas and I live in Missouri, we went on a few video chat dates over dinner before we decided to, well, actually date. I guess you could say the rest is history. After a year, we may be apart, but we are closer together.

A long-distance relationship isn’t without its challenges, I’ve discovered. I honestly don’t know how military families are able to cope with the separation. Because this is really, really hard. When you care about someone so much and want to be near them so badly it hurts, not having the choice of popping by to see them any time you want is not fun.

Every moment you have with them is sacred. It’s both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because you are able to hold each other for a time, a curse because, sooner or later, that time will be up.

I knew going into a relationship of any sort would have its difficulties. I never dreamed my first relationship would be long distance. But I don’t think anyone actually does. Life is funny that way, isn’t it? I never anticipated how hard it would be, however.

Does separation make the heart grow fonder? I don’t know the answer. But by learning more about Inosuke through daily texting and occasional video chatting, I’ve grown to love him for his many strengths, passions, faults, and quirks.

Something that’s been recommended to us is making time to talk on the phone with each other. Phone calls are something that we both struggle with making, even though we both do it for our jobs. It’s easy to put off a hard thing and think, “Oh, I’ll just start later.” But with that mindset, you never start. I’ve found that it’s easy to put off important things we need to unpack through discussion because we don’t physically see each other all the time. Out of sight, out of mind. Because of this, I feel like our relationship is moving at a molasses pace.

But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Being apart forces us to not rush things and having to mostly text each other allows us to consider our words before we tap them out on our glowing screens. Being apart allows us to enjoy our time together more sweetly and to be more present with each other in each limited moment.

Believe it or not, being apart has allowed us to take our relationship at our own pace, without having to fight against social pressure to move more quickly. I have realized, that right now, Inosuke and I are at different stages of our lives, and we need to grow as individuals toward our goals and live our lives apart for a time before fully coming together.

This means waiting and working hard. For impatient people like us, it feels like some sort of torture some days. During tough times, when all we want to do is be together, we can’t. And we hate it. Being alone is hard. Being alone without your person is harder.

Despite everything, we have decided that this is worth it. Coming to that realization doesn’t make things any easier but having that sentiment in common does help a little bit. We have decided that even though we are apart, we are stronger together.

We are strengthening our relationship daily with each word of encouragement that we write, each virtual date night, and each heart emoji. Sometimes it’s the smallest gestures that count the most.

I can count my relationship as a blessing because I can share my life with someone who I know loves me very much, and that even though we cannot physically see each other, mutual trust, affection, and the wonders of technology can keep us together. This would make for one weird rom com, but no happily ever after is typical.

A long-distance relationship is not for everyone. Heck, I still don’t even know if it’s for me. But I’m willing to try my hardest and put the work in because I have hope that in the end, it’ll all be worth it.