I Think I Spent My Whole Life Learning to Be Alone: Longing and Long Distance Relationships

I think I spent my whole life learning to be alone. Becoming more comfortable with my own company. Adolescence is spent marking the first moments of solitude - the first metro ride on your own, the first walk through town on your own, the first time you go clothes shopping alone, your first plane journey alone, your first meal alone. I felt lonely for a lot of those. After the rush of independence, I felt lonely. I would call a friend rather than walk home alone. I would watch a film rather than eat alone. I still have never been to the cinema alone, and I'm not sure I ever will.

But with age, I have learnt. I teach myself how to enjoy my own company. I go for a walk with my favourite album as a soundtrack, and I choose exactly what I stop and stare at and how fast I go and how often I smile to myself. I watch films alone, knowing that I really do like that more. I cook myself food alone and can drench what I eat in all the salt and butter that would no doubt revolt a possible companion. I take a certain pleasure in my own company, reminding myself of the enjoyment that my thoughts can give me, that no one else's thoughts would.

Then a year ago, life gave me a partner. Someone who I could ask to accompany anywhere, for anything (seemingly). Any new meal I wanted to try, he would cook with me. Any walk I wanted to take, any place I wanted to explore, I could take him too. If there was a film I couldn't watch alone, or a place I needed to drive to, or a restaurant I had always wanted to try, I knew someone would come with me and make it better. I had a partner. An equal. A companion. I let myself depend on his company, rely on his presence in my life. If I couldn’t see him, if we didn't have time for each other, it would be a grave injury to that day.

Which was stupid, because no matter what the future held, that would always have to end. He would always move, I would always stay. So, after a year, this evolved into a long distance relationship.

We talk every day, I tell him every thought that passes through my brain and share every meal, every walk, every film, with my words. From 466 miles away, of course.

I have adjusted this way just once before. Leaving home, I was forcing a strange, unnatural detachment from my parents. Which is of course the most natural thing in the world, but I couldn't wrap my head around it. Not eating with my two best friends. Not telling them everything about my day, everything I think of as soon as I think of it. And now, just like the rest of us, I have to teach myself how to live with them again every time I go home. I have to remind myself that its not the most heinous crime they ever committed, when they invade the kitchen whilst I cook in order to have some toast. That when they ask the same question twice in a day, or a week, I'm not necessarily in the right when I snap at them impatiently.

When I see my boyfriend again, we teach ourselves about company. We refresh our memories quite quickly. On how to share the bed - facing away from each other, it seems. (After we fall asleep, usually). On how to cook - not together anymore, unfortunately. We're too stuck in our own separate, solitary ways for that. On how often to walk to the supermarket and how often to drive. (Compromise, of course). He looks after me when I'm tired before bed, and I look after him when he's sleepy in the morning. It's a delicate dance which we try to follow closely, and sometimes we miss a step and the mood sours for a few hours. We're out of practice you see. It takes a few days to oil the gears again and learn how to be a partner after a month or three of solitude.

We throw ourselves together in a confined space - my tiny student flat, or his tiny family home (with just an attic to sleep in and no door for privacy). We try to be the same person to each other that we once were: a splash of colour in our day, a shoulder to cry on, a warm meal after a long shift at work, a way to be happy. Playing that role, filling that space, gets harder. You are either miles away, an abstract thought or a floating voice on the phone, or you completely saturate my life. Your suitcases and belongings fill my room, we house-share a single desk and have to suddenly coordinate our every movement - meals, sleep, workspace, and moods.

When he is not here, when I can't just walk to his flat (across a single street) to feel loved and protected and safe, I have had to find something else. I drink a cup of tea - tea bags he sent me after I rang him in tears about my dissertation. I curl up in the jumper he brought me once when he went home for a weekend (and I missed him so much I thought I was insane, because he was only gone a few days and I felt entirely empty and listless). I let myself swim in the memories we made together when he was my constant form of protection and love. I think back to every one of the meals we made together and can’t help but notice how they are better than what I cook now in every way possible. And I know, that if he were here, he would cook me something beautiful and eating it would be as comforting as being wrapped in his arms, in his bed, for eternity.

But I also find other ways of coping. I speak to my flatmates and let them smother me in their empathy and love. I go for walks on my own, calm myself by calling my parents and my brother who are unmatched in patience and compassion. I don't let myself fall that deep when I can help it, because I know there isn't someone right across the road to pull me out.

When I speak to my boyfriend, the waves of missing him sometimes dissipate. Sometimes they don’t, and I end the phone call feeling more desperate for my companion than I think is healthy. Sometimes I turn around, face the sea, and walk straight into those waves. Until they reach my neck, until they drown me in a melancholy longing that I can only compare to the last days of summer, the final glowing sunsets in your hometown when you only have a few days before you leave for university again and you’re trying to make them the most perfect evenings of the year. Those waves of melancholic longing invite me in, and sometimes I float for a while before I fight my way out (and it really is a fight). And stand on solid ground. And let my memories dissipate, return to the corner of my brain where they belong, safe and separate. And I try to continue with my day.

I am at a point in my life where it is impossible to be anywhere without missing someone. Not just an old friend or my grandparents in Wales (I have spent my whole life missing them), but a person who is as much a part of myself as I am. My parents, who I message every single day, even four years after leaving home. My dog – the less I say about her, the better (for my own emotional wellbeing). My brother is the best person in my life, no competition. And I see him for a couple of weeks every year. Sometimes I think about moving in with him after I graduate, instead of going somewhere to find a job or study for a masters. Just move in with him and experience his wonderful presence in my life for a year. I would be happier, healthier and revitalised I have no doubt. When I get to see those parts of me, those people I share DNA with, but also cultural heritage and an intensely happy childhood and a house and a lot of other things that make them the best people for me to live with, when I get to see these people, I am separated from others. The parts of my adult life that are essential to who I am. My flatmates, who have shaped the person I am today as much as anyone could in two years. They left huge gaping holes in me over the summer in lockdown, and I am bracing myself for those wounds to be reopened. Then, in either place, in my new life or my old, in Scotland or in England, I miss my boyfriend. Unavoidably, unflinchingly.

There must be a trick to feeling complete. No one has everyone they love in the same place at the same time. But I haven’t figured that trick out yet. I haven’t worked out how to feel whole as myself, not missing vital parts when I can’t see a member of my family, old or new. It’s as if I constantly have to choose which group of people, which part of my life I have to sacrifice – do I stay, or do I go?

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Photography by Koleena Guzmán