I want a life with you. I want to fast forward this part, right here, when we are living out our separate lives miles from each other. I don’t want our worlds to only collide by text or to touch your face through a computer screen, tracing the outline of your jaw and imagining the softness of your hair beneath my fingers. I do not wish for dates set weeks from now and checking them off on my phone and going to sleep each night, grateful another day has disappeared. No, quite simply my love I want our universes to be so tangled, so intricately wrapped that missing you will only be an option when sleep finds me. I want a life with you, a home with you, a bed and the same four walls. I want to brush my lips across yours as I leave for work in the morning, knowing that we will be together when night falls. I want to kick off my shoes and have you rub my feet and tell you about my day, about my horrible boss and rude clients and for you to say all of the right things at the right time, just like you always do. I want late night runs to the grocery store for popcorn and candy before we climb into our matching onesies and binge watch The Walking Dead and to then lie awake deep into the night, discussing how we would survive zombie apocalypse—you laughing at my terrible survival instincts before pulling me close into your chest and telling me “I’ve got your back.” Because you always have. I want those quiet mornings when we’re both working hard, not speaking but existing in the same space, taking it in turns to make tea and coffee and I want those days when our passion consumes us and we tear apart the entire house, like young lovers again lost to each other without a care in the world. I want D.I.Y with you, building flat pack furniture and arguing over the stupid instructions before collapsing into fits of laughter and cracking open the wine. I want to feel your hand at the small of my back as we throw our first house gathering, each of us filtering into the room to speak to our friends but always catching each other’s eyes and smiling knowing that we have made it, we are here, this is ours. So please, let us skip this part, press fast forward, let us return to each other and build our life together. I want all of those in-between bits, the mundane every day bits when we will get annoyed at each other for leaving the milk out or not washing the dishes straight away or finding socks at the foot of the bed. I want us to talk about chores, what we need from the shop and which family event we need to attend this month. I want that small pleasure at a simple life with you because my love, no day is ordinary with you, no day will need anything other than your existence, your smile, your gentle touch. And maybe I am silly for wanting to rush it, maybe I am forgetting that the distance is romantic in its own way, maybe I should be making the most of this last year of studying before I dive into my writing career but really, truly, I just want you, no more, no less. Only you, and us. And our life together.

You knew me better than I knew myself. How could you forget me?

Sometimes I wonder if you think of me as much as I think of you, or if you even think of me at all.

Long distance is not easy. It is not easy to watch someone through a screen instead of your eyes tracing the curves of their face while they’re standing in front of you. It’s not easy to have a bad day and not be able to see one of the only people that can make it better. For something exciting to happen and not be able to celebrate about it that night. To not be able to have brunch on Sunday morning, or make dinner plans for when you get off work, or snuggle up together on the couch for one of the nights a tv show comes on that you both love. Sometimes you miss them so much and it’s like you can’t get relief from it. Sure, you plan times to see each other but some nights are bad and you need them right now and you need to touch them or you’ll die and your heart has never felt so lonely. Long distance is not easy but one day it will be worth it. One day you’ll live in a cute apartment together where you can wake up next to each other and fuck each other to sleep and a see you later means see you tonight when we get off and it’s time for dinner. Long distance is a choice. It’s a commitment to say, “I love you more than all of the distance between us.”