It is currently 8:48 on a Saturday night, the first weekend after going back to classes. This  week has been excruciating, beginning a new schedule and re-acclimatization to the 335 km between me and my family, friends, and partner. Sam, my boyfriend of nearly two years, is currently sitting in a booth with his family at Matty O’Shea’s, a local pub in the small town we grew up in. He is out, enjoying whatever drink his older brother has suggested to him while winding down from his laborious work week, most likely hoping to avoid any chat about his investment as an apprentice at a welding and fabrication shop. 

Not long into the beginning of the fall semester, we realized just how different our lives were going to be; him, remaining in our small town pursuing the trades straight out of high  school, and me, moving four hours away to attend university. With Valentine’s  Day rapidly accelerating closer I am overtly reminded how difficult the distance can get while living in two different worlds. A world of labour, and another of intellectual trials. 

The differences in our worlds quickly translate through to the differences in our  schedules. Days are filled with him waking up at 5:30 am, and beginning work around 7:00,  while I peel myself out of bed just in time to make it to my 10:00 am class. Despite us working similar hours soon after that, during these hours we were lucky to receive a text at all, either during a lunch break or while quickly replying while walking from one end of campus to another. Our inability to talk often continued into the late night as well. While he was home, I would remain productive in the third-floor cubicles of Innis, attempting to fulfil my quota of  work for the day while he relaxed in bed while sending me each TikTok that reminded him of me.  

Our days would conclude with him calling me before falling asleep, usually around midnight, while I would remain silent until I unmuted myself to wake him up once done work at some time around 3 am the next day.Waking him up has become a task likened to pulling the sword from the stone: a discouraging struggle of me yelling through the call, spam texting him to vibrate his phone, and even learning how to use the keypad to play songs to bring him to consciousness (specifically You Are My Sunshine). 

The disconnects in our schedules would be easier to manage if it wasn’t for the distance  between us which it accentuates. Not being able to talk before bed is one thing, but he isn’t there  for a hug, or when I’m breaking down over midterms. I can’t go out with him and our old friends on a Friday night, and he wasn’t there beside me on the day I turned eighteen. When each of these painstaking aspects of the distance and difference unite, I begin to wish I could stop loving him. Apathetic retreat seems so much simpler than enduring four years of pain. Yet regardless of the torment, I could not stop loving him if I tried. Every bit of me that misses him begins to disappear when I see him again. The moments in films when the protagonist runs to their partner at the airport cannot match the relief that I get when I sprint into his arms in Union Station just to feel him and smell his cologne again.  

Knowing that there is an end in sight is what keeps us going, knowing I will see him in a  week gives me hope. It is that prospect and the love that combine to make every solitary  moment and each missed kiss worth it. We are allowed a wonderful privilege of individuality, an  aspect some relationships lack. Despite the difference in schedule and the distance between us, we still thrive. Not because we are two halves of a whole, but because we are two complete  individuals in two different worlds who are lucky enough to occasionally enjoy each other’s company. Even from 335 km away.