Four Lessons Learned from One Year of Quarantining Together
March marks the one year anniversary of COVID-19 wreaking havoc on the United States. Like many people, Jasmine and I were forced into working from home, something we quickly learned would be a blessing and a curse. We were certainly fortunate to continue on working given much of the American workforce had been furloughed or laid-off. However, we’ve learned spending 24hours a day together would present its own unique challenges.
24 hours a day, 7 Days a week, 365 Days a year is special:
There are 24 hours in a day. Most people spend 8-12 of those hours at work, 5-8 hours sleeping and an average of 1-3 hours on a two-way commute. The average numbers account for 18 hours away from one’s significant other. That gives you most of the day away to miss that person, develop stories to tell about your day when you see them and an overall sense of excitement. The first 30 days were easiest. Three months later we realized how little we knew about the ins and outs of each other’s work and how little we see each other in a day.
We’d built our intimate relationship around shared interests, humor and life goals. We grew to find intrigue in learning each other’s work roles and being able to ask more meaningful questions about one’s career. Looking back on history, people would have to calculate the entirety of their relationship to gather the kind of time we’ve spent together and been drawn closer by this year. We thrived in it. We developed new inside jokes, spent evenings discussing our future.
Personal time and space are critical:
Like a boxing match between rounds, when fighters are sent to their corners, we designated spaces as ours. It wasn’t a verbal agreement, so much as it was by default positioning. As the evening would wind down, and work was set aside, after watching a few shows together, Jasmine would take an hour or so to herself in the bedroom to read her book, write in her journal, etc... I did the same, but in the living room. This space and time became very important throughout this year, not just for creating peace after an argument, but more importantly for preserving our individuality.
Intimacy is a roller coaster:
Although everyone thought there would be a baby boom during the course of the pandemic, things took a different turn. Recent research has shown that everyone is having less sex during this past year and no time dedicated to intimacy. When you spend all day with your significant other it is hard to miss them, which for us plays a part within our intimate relationship. Our love for one another didn’t change, but our lack of longing to see each other during the day has shifted. Given this shift in our life we try and dedicate time or evenings solely for date night so we don’t “lose the spark”.
It’s okay to not like each other everyday:
Sometimes when we’ve had disputes, the work day would allow us to go to our separate corners and gain perspective. Over the last year that wasn’t an option. Any and every dispute we’d have was inescapable in a way it hadn’t been before. Tuning our communication was more important than ever. There were countless discussions to recalibrate how we communicated and what we were communicating, as the walls closed in. We had to develop a way to tell each other “leave me alone” or “I don’t like you right now” and it would be okay.
