Love in the Time of Corona
She was standing in front of that gate with a worried gaze. Her mouth stayed shut. Her lips were reluctant to bid me farewell. I knew that a feeling was boiling up inside her. Something told her that we wouldn’t be able to meet at any time sooner.
Her intuition turned out to be right. A pandemic broke, causing a time of anxiety. The situation became much harder for both of us and the people around us. She was not allowed to work from office, limiting herself to only a confined space called home.
It has been months and we have not seen each other. Only sometimes, we had a short conversation through the unstable network which my cellphone picked up. It was painful, really. Not only for us.
Somewhere out there, people are carrying the same worries. Somewhere out there, a teacher is missing her students, and a food peddler is looking for his usual customer but nowhere to be found. Somewhere else, a son is longing for his family and couldn’t go home. The burden that they are carrying might be many times heavier than any lover’s.
It is a little weird to think that nobody could really give himself up to be separated. Each of us feels estranged by the absence that fills up the room. When there aren’t any ears to be talked to, nor any mouth for us to listen to, we are easily alienated by our own loneliness.
We, humans, are such a lonely creature, aren’t we? We have traveled millions of miles on a little spaceship called Earth, all alone across the vast and endless sea of stars — God knows where we are heading. And yet, in our everyday lives, we are far from feeling forlorn.
What is the distance? And why does it hurt to be far away from those we love?
It is technically correct to say that distance is a measurement of numbers, but it is also much deeper than that. While an engineer may measure it using a tool from his box, a poet might also measure it by his words.
Some said loneliness is as hurtful as drug withdrawal. It is the drive to retain the existence of others that inflicts us with mental pain. It doesn’t matter whether the other person is doing just fine. Missing something always leaves a hole in our chests.
But in the end, because of this pandemic, we have no other choice. We can do nothing except to extend the distance that was already stretched between one and another.
One thing to keep in mind, though. We distance ourselves not to separate us from each other. Instead, we should believe that it is to bring us closer than ever.
And I am going to bear the distance as long as it is for those I love. Even if it’s for more than 51 years, 9 months and 4 days. I will wait. The distance was already unpleasant from the beginning, after all.
