Staying Together While Apart

Nov 9

Niagara Falls, CAN | Pre-COVID shutdowns, January 2020

Married Life, Year Two: Life Goals & Long-Distance

My supernatural aptitude for finding four-leafed clovers notwithstanding, I am an incredibly lucky person. Whether you believe in luck or religious faith, it is a true gift to find a person who not only accepts you in your wholeness but also encourages you to continue growing as a person while doing the same for themselves. As a girl I did not dream-up a life partner, but even if I had, there is no way I could have dreamed big enough for what I have discovered in the well of respect, connection, communication, and adventure that I have found in my relationship with my husband, Tom. It took me a while to get to this place of maturity, despite my best efforts, and I expect I will have more opportunities for growth, yet—or at least I hope so. I think it would be quite dull if the story ended here. (Forget “happily ever after”, I want “and the adventure continued”.)

After being accepted and confirming with the Fulbright U.S. Student Program I would be traveling abroad as a Fulbright-EDUFI recipient, I received many congratulations and questions about what it was I would be doing abroad. My second-most fielded question, though, was about what my husband, Tom, and I would do. At a summertime Morgantown Pride event’s after-party, one person in particular asked the common question most concisely and genuinely after hearing that I would depart for Finland in about a month: “But what about Tom?” Perhaps a bit too-quickly, I quipped, “Well, he’s house-trained.” Laughter broke out and, responding to the still-concerned face of the inquirer, I said, “Truly, we are just able to do the best we can. We are establishing some boundaries and setting up structures within our relationship that will help us to successfully connect and receive each other’s love even across the distance.” Of course, I am sure I said it much less eloquently in the moment. I chose to write this particular blog entry during what we anticipated would be the longest month to withstand from a relationship standpoint. In Finland, it is also the darkest and potentially dreariest month, if the locals are to be believed (and I do believe them), so with the blessing of my loving husband, I thought it would be a good time to reflect and share our experiences.

Walking with Longing and Purpose

Tom was supposed to be here in Finland throughout the entire grant period. At least, that’s how we had planned it. We even moved our wedding up a year as a precaution to me receiving the scholarship, among other logistic considerations. (Thanks for being flexible, family and close friends! —even if you had little choice.) As it happened, just about a week after we finalized plans for the wedding to be moved up a year—from 2021 to 2020—the global pandemic began to shut down nations. We all have lived the futility of the would-have-beens and could-have-beens that COVID-19 irrevocably altered. At least for our part, Tom and I ducked and rolled with the changes as best we could. In the end, we had a beautiful wedding, we were both on-track to finishing our degrees (even if graduation was delayed a bit for Tom), and I accepted the research grant that I had around a 20% chance of receiving (ProFellow, 2018; Rollins Edu, n.d.). As much as went “off-track” for us, I would say about as much went “right,” too. So, around two weeks after we celebrated our one-year wedding anniversary I crossed an ocean to fulfill a professional goal that would also provide opportunities for Tom and I to learn to listen to and turn towards each other in ways we had not yet needed to explore.

During one of my video-calls with a well-meaning friend back home, they suggested that Tom and I could be the type of couple who always lived in separate homes—states or countries away from each other. This was painful to imagine for me and is not, at all, our goal. Rather, this whole situation is unideal. Even so, I suspect this friend may have suggested it because of how well both Tom and I seem to be doing on our own. Personally, I attribute our success to our encouragement of each other to cultivate our internal purpose, allowing it to manifest outside of our relationship as well as within it. We remain close because we have become each other’s confidants in this process. We understand that mind-reading was never an acceptable assumption and that we needed to communicate well and often, naming our emotions and explaining our perspectives as clearly and honestly as possible. It helps that we find joy in the little moments with each other as well. For instance, Tom is just as likely to show me how well my houseplants are doing (newly under his care) as he is to give me an update about the advocacy work he does in support of Women in Flight or Civil Air Patrol networking and training events. In kind, I made it a point to leave and send a couple of small gifts for him to open at different stages of our time apart in addition to the daily video calls or messages. Transitioning from quarantining together during the global pandemic to only spending time together virtually is easier, in part, because we know this time apart is finite. Even so, these elements were part of our foundation as a partnership well before I left the country.

The Home Stretch

Before this opportunity, the longest amount of time we had spent apart was a little over a month due to extenuating circumstances and was something we had hoped never to do again. It was certainly disappointing when it became clear that my time in Finland would begin before his, but I generally felt that there was too much to do beforehand to worry over it. Plus, we were still able to soak up time together. Both Tom and I tend to stay busy with major goals, side projects, and keeping in touch with family and friends, but for those few months we were more intentional about turning-toward each other in the little moments, talking about what books we might read together, and discussing how we could work in a game night here and there when only Wi-Fi would connect us. We are so thankful for this technology.

When I told Tom I would write about this topic, I suggested we should write a letter to each other, summing up how we have progressed emotionally as we reach our third (of four) consecutive month apart. While we both agree that the time is absolutely flying by because of each of our projects, goals, and responsibilities, there is also a temptation to sleep more frequently to encourage the time to go by even more quickly so we can see each other without a virtual barrier. Not to mention, this would aid with the general heartache that young couples who are carrying each other’s hearts feel when they focus too long on the weight of their chosen burden. In a vivid way, the presence of this weight represents the absence of a piece of yourself—“a piece of yourself” being the person, not the heart they hold for you. Part of being in our partnership means we hold each other accountable to not sleep to pass time or dull our emotions, though. I do not believe that life ever slows down and I am fortunate to find a like-minded life-partner. As such, we both ultimately prefer to drink deeply from life’s draught instead of mooning and brooding under the shade of its trees. So, we take turns encouraging each other and resting at interval.

Now, with the upcoming holiday season and close to a month left until we see each other in person again, there are many more milestone dates available for us to use like hikers use dry, flat rocks to cross over a creek. Once reunited after this four-month stint, I anticipate that we’ll keep on fortifying our foundation as we journey forward together, ever-continuing our chosen adventure.

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