Goodbye to a Year

2020 has ended. A year that's been weird and hard for the entire globe. A year in which I've been very very happy. A year in which my life aligned with a man's and we grew closer than we ever intended. But now it's 2021 and on Sunday, he moves to Leeds and I stay here.

It's the end of our relationship, if not so much a break up as the point where our lives diverge. We knew from the start it wouldn't make sense for us to do a long distance relationship. It's not as if he will be back in a year or I will follow him later... I am taking root and he is taking wing. 

Yet for 2020 our lives ran in parallel.

Love in the Time of Corona

The pandemic is a terrible thing, but all bad things work out well for somebody, and that's how it panned out for us. Yes, it was a pain at times (particularly with the whole driving fiasco), but really, I only moan about Covid-19 restrictions because that's the socially acceptable thing to do. They haven't stopped my life from flourishing. Had my dream been to run a pub in Sheffield, that would have been a different matter. But my dream was to work with pre-schoolers in Cornwall. My life has progressed in a year when so many had to put theirs on hold—or saw them shattered completely. I'm grateful for that and humbled by it.

It also meant my boyfriend stayed down south almost a year longer than intended. It was supposed to be a fairly casual relationship, where we would go out on a ramble somewhere every one to two weeks. Instead, we bubbled up and he became his own part of our family for the past six months. He met my parents, I met his Mum, he was there for me during the driving issues and for the move. We've had long conversations about difficult parts of our lives, supporting each other emotionally as well as practically. 

He's also cooked dozens of meals. As the person who has been responsible for dinner for the past 20 years, I cannot begin to tell you how exciting it is to watch somebody cook for me.

For New Year's, we arranged to have one day of 2021 together. It was freezing up on Dartmoor, but we layered up to explore the geography around Haytor. Ice caused us to fall on our backsides several times, and mist kept blowing in and out, but we climbed rocks and scrambled down crevices without breaking our necks. It was perfect. A very 'us' sort of day and adventure. A day to carry with us as we face a busy year. 

At the end of our walk, I drove him back to our starting point. I took the bag I had left in his car, we hugged and kissed in the dusk, then I got back into my car and drove away across the moor and home to my family.

I may miss him terribly, yet I am where I belong.

Our lives will cross again in the future. His parents live down here and he loves the countryside here—we've agreed that if nothing else, we'll meet up for more moor and coastal adventures. However, there's no point in waiting for each other. 2021 will bring its own adventures to each of us. I can wait to hear his, but I won't to live mine.