LDR and the pursuit of happiness

See you in a few hours, love.” I sent a message while walking across the loading bridge to board the last leg of my flight to Amsterdam, just as the airport’s internet reception disappeared. It was a red-eye flight from Hong Kong, but the anticipation and longing kept me up most of the way. The swelling in my chest grew like a ripening jack fruit, ready to burst at a moment’s notice. I watched a few films, kept myself busy with a book, and read the aircraft safety manual over and over—anything to kill time and soothe my anxiety as the hours passed. Turbulence was minimal, but I kept my seatbelt fastened in an attempt to steady my raging heart.

“You’ve met before, silly,” I whispered to myself as the captain announced landing. “There is no reason to be anxious; you’re giving yourself a heart attack.”

Two years after our first conversation online, my partner Teun flew to the Philippines to meet me in the flesh. Unfortunately, the stars didn’t align with our plans—definitely not the usual movie-like summer romance extravaganza. He was hospitalized from a stomach bug while I dealt with my brother’s sudden death and funeral. Nonetheless, we had a few laughs about the bug and joked that we can’t make hospital visits a tradition whenever we go on holiday. Now that it was my turn to visit his country, I wondered if I was honoring tradition too early, feeling like I was about to faint from anxiety.

At 6 a.m., we landed. The runway was pitch black and torrential rain greeted our plane. Somehow, I lugged myself across never-ending hallways, past immigration, and picked up my bag from the conveyor belts. Teun was holding a bouquet of orange roses when I ran into his arms.

Most people will tell you that a long distance relationship (LDR as my generation calls it) is difficult and quick to end. Despite the advancement of the internet, high definition web cameras, and various apps to communicate, it just doesn’t work. To a great extent, they’re correct. Romantic love requires a certain level of togetherness and unbridled intimacy, like a seed seeking warmth from the soil it is planted in to grow. When I fell in love with a person who lived halfway across the world, I did not know what to expect. I tucked my heart away in a half-closed suitcase for safekeeping. Eventually, the limbs, the bones, the brain followed. LDR meant that I was living with a half-closed suitcase sitting in the corner of my bedroom, waiting for the next trip or the next flight to carry me back to my beloved.

And so begins the pursuit of happiness.

A few days after arriving, I found myself along a riverbank in Amsterdam, about to feed wild ducks with discount supermarket bread. The morning air was biting and howling, so Teun held my hand and put it inside his pocket to keep it from freezing. We shared a carton of chocolate milk for breakfast and let the gray Dutch skies bear witness to our raw joy as we threw fragments of bread into the water. A loaf later, the ducks waddled away. He asked me if I was happy. “Yes,” I replied. “I’m always happy around you.”

Teun’s personal philosophy of choosing happiness in the here and now used to be a foreign concept to me. We are polar opposites in that regard. I enjoy delayed gratification while he chooses that which delivers happiness in the present. Although, there was something about the ducks, or the chocolate milk, or maybe the cold, that struck me deep in my core that day. However macabre this realization might be, it made me view life through a different lens than how I used to: my life is ending, every moment is slipping away, happiness is not chased but found and created.

My favorite quote on love comes from the book “The Double Flame” by Nobel laureate Octavio Paz: “The time of love is neither great nor small; it is the perception of all times, of all lives, in a single instant.” If you ask me, I would tell you that you’re making your life unnecessarily hard by being in an LDR. It requires a great deal of patience, trust, and uncertainty. It is a waiting game without a set deadline. However, there simply are people who change the trajectory of your life. Teun is one of those people for me. I would not trade our airport reunions and late night conversations on the phone for a “normal” romantic relationship.

Time is a double-edged sword when it comes to LDR. We count the days when either of us could fly to the other’s country, waiting eagerly at the arrivals area, longing for love’s first embrace after months of separation. From here, the ticking timer begins—one that we ignore initially but grows deafening as the day of parting approaches once more. When time is an adversary, one begins to grow a gentle consciousness. There is a realization that my existence is fleeting and the tangents in my life, people I shared a particular moment at a specific point of time, may never cross my path again. I tried to memorize the lines and dots on Teun’s face, traced the bridge of his nose and the creases of his laugh lines, inhaled his scent, and marveled at his being. I was present and he was there. We were happy and that was enough.

But just like that, it was time to separate—again.

“See you soon, love.” I texted as I boarded the plane back to the other side of the world.

—————-

Floriane T. Taruc, 22, is an unabashed romantic who enjoys reading Jane Austen and Mary Oliver. She is currently a veterinary medicine student at the University of the Philippines Los Baños but her love for creative writing remains.