I Can’t Stop Thinking About this Couple

How do they cope? They don’t even live in the same city. Confinement may change everything for them.

Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash

In my work as a dispensing optician, I meet a lot of different people every day. I love working there because I can take time to talk with my clients and get to learn something from them. I can’t wait to go back! (deconfinement is 11th of May here in France). I am eager to hear the testimonies of people. If they actually come… Yikes, let’s not think about that.

In March, before the confinement starts, a couple came to buy glasses at my shop. It’s a wonderful space, far away from those chain stores, where the human aspect of our profession is nonexistent.

As we chitchat with one of my colleagues, they told us that he lived in Paris and she lived here, in Lyon. Pause.

It’s like one lived in New York and the other in Chicago. This couple, together for years, heading to their 40’s, they weren’t living together. What?

I stared in disbelief. So many questions!

And they explained they’ve tried but, the dynamics within their respective cities were so different that no one wanted to move.

Paris, loud, pretty, stubborn. Lyon, sweet, caring, full of opportunities.

For him, Lyon was too slow, lazy. For her, Paris was too much: too big, too polluted, too fast. Two ways of life. Irreconcilable.

But what now?

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

When Mr. President declared the confinement, he said we must stay where we were. A lot of students couldn’t get back to their parents. If married couples could reunite, non-married ones couldn’t.

This couple couldn’t. And it’s been six weeks.

In France, there are about 1.2 million lovers living apart (Ined). Most of them are young people and people who had a previous long relationship.

Why I can’t stop thinking about them? Because their story makes me think about life. What really matters? They settled in a life that wasn’t perfect for them (they told me so) because no one wanted to live somewhere they dislike.

Would you rather live somewhere you don’t like but with the person you love? Or would you live in a place you love and accept to see your lover on weekends only? And even so, what about harsh times like the one we’re in?

This period will change many things about the way we lived until now. It already changes our views on health and collective efforts. Let’s think and think hard, about what really matters.

Thanks for reading! Feel free to clap, comment or follow me if you’ve enjoyed it!

Ed.

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