I can’t stress the importance of this enough in a long-distance relationship. The last weekend in October was the first time I had seen my current boyfriend of three months, in three months. When we started dating it was July, and he had come out to ask me to be his girlfriend.

We had started out as friends, I met him when I had moved out to his state for a year. I wasn’t expecting to meet anyone at the time. I came back home and him and I stayed in touch. Normally, you fall out of touch when you move away, that’s just what happens. The strange thing was that our friendship grew with the distance. He started teaching this fall so communication has become less frequent with our hectic schedules. We weren’t for sure what was going to happen, or when we were going to see each other again.

The first time we left each other in July we said goodbye, he was driving back home. In October when he came to see me again, I had decided to travel with him to the airport. I felt like I was in a romance novel. We were driving in his red rental car holding hands. We both glanced at each other every so often with the “this is it” look. We got to the airport, I found it funny as they were playing a romantic jazzy song on the radio on the bus. We walked upstairs towards check-in. There was a little while before he had to get in line so we stood off to the side. He was talking about feeling nervous getting on the plane. I said, “You’ll feel better once you are on the plane.” He said, “No it won’t be, then I’ll be leaving you.” I then mouthed the words, “It’s not goodbye, it’s see you later.”