They say long distance relationships are hard. Most people detest the lack of proximity between their significant other and often makes intimacy all the more difficult, especially those having physical touch as their main love language. These things couldn't be any more true with Kevin (@compositeguy) and I.
Our relationship is not exactly a smooth-sailing one, having been together for 2 years and 10 months (if my math doesn't fail me 😅) and only being within proximity to each other for the first 5 months.
Like everything, life happened. The pandemic happened. I was retrenched and had to move back to my hometown, Tagbilaran, Bohol while Kevin was stranded in Mindanao unable to return to Cebu at that time.
I was contacted by the City Schools Division to finally start my return of service for the government scholarship I was given during college as a science teacher in a local national high school. You can read all about the details in my intro if you missed it.
I became a school teacher during the height of the pandemic, while Kevin also transitioned from his position as a product specialist to an environmental engineer after procuring his license, and due to our my extremely busy schedule, we have been in LDR mode ever since and are only granted opportunities like Holidays and long weekends to meet and catch up emotionally.
It is not the most ideal of scenarios but it is what we have, but we do our best to make the most of it.
Last week (April 10-16, 2022) was Holy week. The Philippines is a pretty Catholic country, so of course, several days of the week are expected to be holidays in order to observe this sacred religious event, like Maunday Thursday (Mierkoles Santo) and Good Friday (Biernes Santo) in this case, so we had a pretty long weekend -- not only to rest and reflect on the final days of Christianity's savior, but also to revive the faith.
Kevin and I took this opportunity to escape from our roles and booked a place near Alona Beach, Panglao in the middle of Good Friday where the city is as nearly empty as a ghost town.
There were no tricycles and public vehicles going up and about. Most grocery stores were closed as well and only a few private establishments operated for a limited duration. For a while there, I forgot the extent of religiosity there was in Tagbilaran City and it really did pose a problem during the trip.
Tagbilaran City was no Cebu City and Kevin was culture shocked at the ghost townish air. In fact, for a while he got worried as he almost wasn't able to get on a ride on the way to meet me from the pier.
Alona Beach, Panglao was 31 minutes away (18 km) from Tagbilaran City and there was no way of getting there on foot with all the baggage we were carrying, but luckily, despite the absence of public jeepneys anywhere, my partner and I were blessed enough to get there through motorcycle "habal-habal" instead for 200 PHP (3.83 USD).
We booked at Conrada's place through Agoda for a deluxe room of 1,800 PHP per night (34.32 USD), and there were no regrets on both our ends:
The place was a low-key pristine place located at a private lane in Brgy. Tawala.
The pool's clear blue water certainly reassured me that we were far from our roles at home and in a place where the introverts in us could have some peace.
We made a promise to not use our phones and open social media throughout the whole trip except for taking pictures. Both of us cheated on this promise everytime there was dead time so joke's on us 🤡.
Our main form of entertainment throughout our stay is a card game, and not just any card game, something that could test the mettle of a relationship (since some of the questions can be quite triggerable) 😂.
I will never forget his answers to some of the questions. There were some I was surprised to hear about, and some which I wasn't. But overall, the card game really was the one that lit a spark in allowing us to catch up emotionally, something that I think is a must for any relationship which involves a consistent lack of physical proximity.
From the trip and the card game, I learned new things about @compositeguy-- like his favorite color 😂 (please don't judge), the very subtle things that actually annoy him more than he would like to admit, the extent of his phobic trauma on one area .
And more importantly, I also learned a lot of things about myself that I will not have been made aware of without Kevin's help through this game: like how I really am when I'm angry 😂, or the things I actually find important or my values-- I found this quite surprising and interesting and quite accurate. To think that I already think of my self-knowledge and awareness as superb 😂.
When I think about this, I remember a piece of gem from a lecture of one of my favorite philosophers:
I know that you’re not easy to live with. And the reason is that you’re Homo sapiens and, therefore, you are not easy to live with. No one is. But there’s a wall of silence that surrounds us from a deeper acquaintance with what is actually so difficult about us.
Our friends don’t want to tell us. Why would they bother? They just want a pleasant evening out. Our friends know more about us and more about our flaws. Probably after ten minutes’ acquaintance, a stranger will know more about your flaws than you might learn over 40 years of life on the planet. Our capacity to intuit what is wrong with us is very weak.
Our parents don’t tell us very much. Why would they? They love us too much. They know. They conceived. Of course, they followed us from the crib. They know what’s wrong with us. They’re not going to tell us. They just want to be sweet. And our ex-lovers, a vital source of knowledge. They know. Absolutely they know.
But do you remember that speech that they gave?... Nonsense. They thought lots of things were wrong with but they weren’t going to be bothered to tell you. They were just out of there. -- Why You Will Marry The Wrong Person by Alain De Botton
And probably one other thing De Botton forgot to mention was that probably, the then lovers tried to tell their partners what was wrong with them while they were together but somehow, there were some elements that ruined it like human pride, or indifference (because similarity DOES breed contempt).
Our partners (provided that they are emotionally well) know us better than we know ourselves, and I just experienced it during the trip.
Our stay at Conrada's place not only allowed us to reconnect emotionally towards each other but also to life itself, which I think is very fitting activity to do during Holy Week, days before Easter Sunday. Reconnecting to life, surrounding ourselves to the wholesomeness of nature where the sky meets the sea, meditating in the quiet, far from the usual things that demand and deplete our energy and time.
And despite all that, there will always be room for thissss 😂:
Overall, I learned a lot throughout our humble 2 days and 1 night adventure at Panglao. We went back to Tagbilaran through a free bus ride for APORS (🥺 pinanggâ kaayo mi!!! we are super blessed!!!) where we continued to observe the Holy Week and even attended the Easter Vigil with my grandma that night 💜.
Roxanne Marie is the twenty-year-old something who calls herself the Protean Creator.
She is a chemical engineer by profession, pole-dancer and blogger by passion and frustration, and lastly, a life enthusiast. She is on a mission to rediscover her truth through the messy iterative process of learning, relearning and unlearning. Currently, she works as a science and research instructor in her hometown, Tagbilaran City, all the while documenting her misadventures, reflections and shenanigans as a working-class millennial here on Hive.
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