Lessons in Distance
Over the three years I’ve known Raja, we’ve never lived in the same city. We met on a street in Cambridge. I was living there and he was visiting from New York. It wasn’t logical to stay in touch, but we did. In the months that followed, we found our way towards each other in a crowded cafe in Red Hook, on a sailboat in the Caribbean, and in the rocky crags of Nevada. Going on all those trips felt easy. There was a set start and end date. If it didn’t work out, we could go home and not see each other again.
But eventually, not seeing each other was the hard thing. And we had to ask ourselves if this relationship could become something. If we had a future, despite the distance. Being together—miles apart—would mean countless goodbyes after weekend visits, missing each other’s milestones, and not being able to reach for an embrace when one of us needed it most.
We could have waited for a better time to start dating. We could have waited until we were finally in the same place. But to be honest, we didn’t know when that would happen. And we didn’t want to lose the possibility that it might just work out. Even though it didn’t make sense. Even though it would be complicated and tiring and the odds were against us. So we decided to try. Both of us were terrified that starting a new relationship over 200 miles apart would mean failure. Those early days were filled with uncertainty.
But by being apart, we’ve had to learn to really be there. We’ve had to learn how to show up for ourselves, for each other, and for our relationship. We’ve learned to be more open and more honest, more empathetic and more forgiving, more courageous and more resilient. We’ve learned that love doesn’t come handed to you on a silver platter tied up with a bow. We’ve had to work hard at love. At times, struggled for it. In the end, the distance might just have been the unwanted ingredient in teaching us how to love better.