To A Love That Spans The Miles

“I will come back.”

The words hung on the air as I watch the plane fly and slowly disappear from my sight.

These words, as comforting and reassuring as they make me feel, hold a thousand of realities I’m afraid to face.

With my feet heavy, I briefly closed my eyes and turned my back from this place where tears of joy and sadness are shed.

Departures. Stop-overs. Arrivals.

If I was more selfish, I could have stopped him from leaving. I wanted him to stay. I wanted to tell him that in here, we can still grow together. We can achieve our dreams hand in hand. We can be physically present as we go through each day.

But being selfish is the last thing that we need to grow.

Maybe distance will bring us closer — to our dreams, to the path we’re meant to take, to each other.

But what if?

What if his departure leads him to disappear from my life?

What if the moment he steps on the land miles away from me, he realizes that there is no going back?

What if he meets someone who shares the same world as him?

What if we outgrow each other?

Inside my head, I wanted to convince him to stay.

But we are stronger than this, aren’t we?

This is just a phase. A stop-over. A pause in our togetherness. And we’ll get through it.

This is just like those places that we aren’t meant to stay in, but to where we needed to be as of the moment.

But until then, we have to treat this pause as a gift. A chance to grow in faith that our love is far greater than the woes of physical distance. 

We have to explore what this separation has to offer. The world goes far and wide, and it doesn’t only have to revolve around the two of us. 

We have to believe that distance isn’t meant to separate us. It is meant to allow us to mature as individuals, to give us time to enrich ourselves, and to truly be deserving to be each other’s keeper.

And when the time comes, we’ll realize that this stop-over is actually a preparation for our arrival.

Our arrival to the lifetime that we can finally spend with each other— the one we’ve been dreaming about since day one.

As he leaves and the distance between us grows, my faith in us gets stronger.

“I will come back.”

And I’ll never mind waiting for the one who showed me what love is all about.