Leaving, living, still loving

One night, while attending a meeting online, my partner, Fritz, received an unexpected email. His visa to Australia had been approved.

I was writing beside him at the time, surprised. I immediately processed the news and congratulated him, even though deep down I didn’t want him to leave. For the first time in our long-distance relationship, we will be separated by the greatest distance. But I didn’t allow my own plans to take precedence. After all, it was our future that was at stake.

Faced with the inevitable, I spent my final week with him exploring his hometown, Pototan, Iloilo, where we’d been cohabiting together for a time. Pototan is almost 100 kilometers from San Jose, Antique, my home.

We went to the public pool, practiced biking, talked over a hot bowl of batchoy, ate at Raacs, our favorite inasalan, grabbed snacks at 7-Eleven, sat on the plaza bench to marvel at the night sky, and stayed up late to watch “American Horror Story” Season 3. Some days, I’d yap about how much I’d miss him when he leaves, or prank him behind the curtains to forget my worries. “I will miss you, too,” he would murmur, clasping my hands to calm my nerves.

His warmth would transport me to the moments when I managed our separation the best. I’d simply console myself by reasoning out “sepanx” and explaining to him that we’ve been through it before, that it will pass in a few days, and that I will be okay by then. However, anytime I started to feel better, the thought of distance would creep up on me like a nagging itch I couldn’t get rid of. Why does separation still hurt even if I’ve gone through it so many times?

It hurts, I believe, because separation in a long-distance relationship like ours puts me in a limbo where all I can think about is when our next meeting will happen. Every time I let go and ride the bus that takes me back to where I came from and watch the distance from the window grow as quickly as the running vehicle, a long list of difficult questions that I desperately want to answer—to reduce, if not eliminate, my worries—rolls out in front of me.

Although the answers come at the right time and place, such as the fact that Fritz will only be working in Australia to save money for a master’s degree and keep some in a joint bank account we hope to open, they are tough to accept. Why? It is difficult to balance a full-time job with consulting and tutoring services. Thus, it is possible for our interaction to dwindle.

And to be honest, that compounds my worries. Fewer interactions as a couple may result in fewer activities. When activities wane, so may the sentiment of love. It can potentially erode our relationship. It can even manifest as mental torture later on. Will this setup last? Will he realize that being single is better now that we’re not together? Will I embarrass the romantics, and prove that distance, rather than making the heart grow fonder, teaches it to tire?

But as the days pass without him at my side, sharing a working space, strolling along the streets of his hometown at night, debating whether to buy coffee or not, and pondering who the real hero in the film series was, I’m realizing that love is beyond physical, and as a result, I see separation as less painful now.

As Fritz put it, “Hindi lahat ng paglisan ay paalam. Minsan ito ay pira-pirasong planadong pagkikita na nakakalat sa mga pahina ng kalendaryo. (Not every departure is a goodbye. Some are just snippets of a planned encounter scattered across the pages of a calendar.)”

The day we last saw one another, I learned that separation in a long-distance relationship isn’t bad. Parting doesn’t always have to look like a runaway lover with suitcases and a one-way ticket at an airport. Sometimes, it’s just two boys watching a film on their last night together, with one of them falling quietly asleep first. He lets go, yet he never quite leaves his lover’s arms.

Despite the uncertainties of our separation, one thing is sure: I will wait for his return. Our long-distance relationship has been fraught with many severances, but it has also been filled with numerous reunions, which would not have happened if either of us had refused to be patient in the past, as we are today with the future we’re building together.

I don’t mind going through one separation after another if it means meeting Fritz again someplace closer to our future. While the days are long, believe me when I say the months are short. Because leaving, living, and still loving in the midst of the distance makes the wait worthwhile.

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Phillippe Tanchuan, 24, is a writer and graduate of sociology and history at the University of the Philippines Visayas.