LIFE LESSONS|PANDEMIC STORIES

I Was in La-La Land With My Long Distance Love When the World Started Lockdown

It marked the end of my massage therapy career, undergraduate school, time with my cat, and life as I knew it in the United States

As we collectively approach the three-year mark since COVID-19 reared its ugly head, I was already lingering on memory lane.

I had written a story about my newfound fascination with coed naked saunas in Germany that reminded me of my trip to Iceland five years ago.

It filled me with nostalgia and longing to return which wasn’t a real consideration for me for the better part of the past three years.

The restrictions where I live in Germany have recently relaxed to the point where everyday life is pretty much where it was before the pandemic.

I see people wearing masks but they are the exception. They might still be required in doctor’s offices but that’s about it.

When I came across Jon Gluck’s invitation to share pandemic stories, it was only a matter of which ones I cared to share and how.

There are many and I have been thinking about how to go about sharing the most important ones for well over a week.

To say this topic fills me with mixed emotions is a severe understatement.

My boyfriend and I met online at the end of summer 2018. We met in person the following winter.

He’s German and lived in Germany, where I planned to live, after finishing my Bachelor’s degree in the spring of 2020.

However, the previous fall, a friend in northern Italy told me about a job offer at a language school where she worked.

They were in desperate need of English teachers and I was in desperate want of a work visa that would allow me to live and work in Italy, France or Germany legally.I had planned to take my TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certification test shortly after I finished my degree.

The plan was to finish my bachelor’s in early May and fly to Seattle right afterward for a close friend’s birthday where I would also meet her one-year-old baby girl for the first time.

I had already given notice at the spa where I worked as a licensed massage therapist for over five years.

The vast majority of my clients were sad about my upcoming departure but were grateful to have their set appointments until that time came.

My last day of work was scheduled for the first of May and had been for months.

It ended up being seven weeks earlier, the day after I returned from visiting my boyfriend in Tenerife, because the world began to go into lockdown.

When I left for that trip, I never would have imagined how much life would be altered when I returned and how long that alteration would last.

I remember texting with the manager of the spa the morning I was scheduled to work after my sixteen-day trip vacation to Tenerife, Spain.

I had been watching the news closely at that point. Spain went into full lockdown three days after I had left the island.

The Madrid airport had already started to look like a ghost town as I made my way back home to Philadelphia.

Many flights had been canceled since Italy went “red” and had imposed its strict lockdown two days earlier. I was grateful my flight was still scheduled and that my return went as smoothly as it did.

My manager seemed to care less about the ordeal. I think she believed I was blowing things out of proportion and getting carried away by news reports.

Even after I sent her a few credible sources that made it very clear that I should quarantine, she asked me to still work the day after my return.

In hindsight, I should have said no, but I did not, even though I knew I was one of the high-risk people who recently traveled close to Italy during that time.

There had, in fact, been confirmed cases of COVID on Tenerife before I boarded my flight.

It was while talking to one of our receptionists, who was immunocompromised and had family in Italy, that things changed.

She and I had not seen each other since I had left. I told her where I had been and that I should keep my distance from her. I could tell from the way she looked that she took me seriously.

I started my third client out of four that were scheduled that day.

When I came out of that session, my manager told me that I needed to go home and quarantine for two weeks, unpaid of course, before I would be allowed to return to work.

I was happy to go.

Little did I, my clients, or any of us, know that I would never return to work as a massage therapist again.

One of the hardest things about leaving my job and profession that way was being denied the privilege of closure.

Lockdown rolled out as a cascading shockwave felt around the world as we kept being told to “wait for further information”.

It was all incredibly surreal.

I had eight more weeks until my last semester of college was over. I was already taking all online classes so there was no difficulty in transitioning.

Being forced to stay home allowed me to focus on my studies and have plenty of time to text and talk with my German boyfriend.

It was his dad who first alerted us to the threat of COVID right before we met up in Tenerife.

I thought that his dad was being paranoid.

For the first half of our sixteen-day trip, I didn’t pay his news any mind. During the second half, I started reading news articles about the coronavirus, using hand sanitizer, keeping my distance from people, and looking at confirmed cases almost every day.

Tenerife was an extra special trip for me and my boyfriend.

Due to our busy schedules and life circumstances, we spent six months apart before we met up for the fourth time over the course of one year.

Time apart was agonizing at times but we made it through and were ecstatic to have 16 days together in the warmth and beauty of Tenerife

When we said our goodbyes at the airport in Madrid, we had no idea when we would be able to see each other again.

I had a plane ticket to Italy just three months later, just in time for my boyfriend’s birthday.

The ticket was canceled.

I could not enter the European Union and he could not enter the United States. We had no idea how long we would have to wait to see each other again and start living together, which was the plan.

He was going to live with me in Italy for a few months and see how it would go.

One of the hardest parts of everything during that time, those first few months when the pandemic began, was the complete and utter inner chaos from so much uncertainty.

I hated that.

I love a good plan and began having a plan A, B, C, and D in order to help me cope with the incredible amount of changes I endured.

My landlord had decided to sell his house, the one in which I had a fantastic apartment for an unbelievable price for fifteen years.

The plan was to be living in Italy by mid-June where I would spend the summer with my boyfriend, and start my new language school job in the fall.

Yet all I had for sure was a canceled plane ticket, a home that I had to move out of as soon as possible, and a thirteen-year-old cat that I absolutely adored.

I ended up having to find a new home for my sweet cat because my vet said an overseas move would likely take a huge toll on his life.

My vet had to tell me this over the phone because, at that point, vets were only taking in animals for visits. Owners were required to wait outside. I burst into tears while sitting alone in my car.

I was heartbroken, but fortunately, I found the perfect person, named Kitty, to take my beloved Gael just two weeks before I left the United States for England, a country that still allowed Americans to enter.

My boyfriend met me there after almost another six months apart.

He had to fly back to Germany for classes that were still being held on campus but was due to return just two months later for the holidays.

It would have been our first New Years Eve together.

England went into lockdown just days before my boyfriend was supposed to return. I could not believe it.

It happened within hours and there was nothing either of us could do.

The job in Italy had completely fallen through. I was living off my savings and had started pursuing online teaching.

That’s also around the time I started writing on Medium.

Writing, going for walks, making time to talk to my friends and family over the phone, painting, and singing are some of the things that helped keep me sane.

I love to hug and be hugged. I love to give and receive massages and affection.

I knew no one in England.

For five months I touched no one and no one touched me, except me. For three of those months, all of the stores that did not sell essential items were closed.

It was one of the hardest periods of my life I have ever endured.

Thank goodness I was in a peaceful and beautiful area that I could afford.

Watching the unpredictable and ever-changing weather and its effects on the English Channel are some of my favorite memories during that time.

The morning lockdown ended, I was on a flight to Ireland where I stayed for sixteen days (quarantines for nine) and then flew to Italy to live with my boyfriend during his semester abroad.

We have been together ever since.

It took two-and-a-half years for me to visit my friends and family in the States due to all the COVID restrictions, vaccines, immigration, and work.

My close friend’s daughter was almost four years old when I finally held her for the first time in person.

Normally, it would not have taken nearly so long to do something that simple.

Life had not been normal for so long that abnormal became the new normal.

Nineteen Airbnb rentals, four countries, countless PCR and antigen tests, three vaccines, two jobs, and three years later, I am starting to feel a sense of peace and ease that seems to be becoming my new norm here in my new home country.