Distance…something that has affected us in one way or another during the last 12 months; and it’s not something I took much notice of back then. I welcomed the working from home; the being able to have breakfast at home and not in a rush; the no travelling and to be completely honest, the quiet. a.k.a. no people around.

Distance was also something that I never used to take into account when I used to make life decisions, like where to study or where to live. My close circle…is more of an infinity symbol; if I was the point where the lines cross, then my loved ones would be the rest of the two loops…either close or far away. This has never made a difference though to the relationship in a negative way. Some bonds are so strong that I can go months (almost a year) without talking to someone and it makes no difference to that real feeling of closeness when a conversation does happen. However, let’s not kid ourselves. 99 percent of our relationships require concerted effort and contact; whether it’s by phone, messaging, email whatever. And here’s what the last 12 months has taught me. Nothing replaces hearing a person’s voice or seeing someone in person. Yes, I said it. I miss people. (Admission to being human, damnit).

Distance can be something we can embrace or fight against. We can either allow it to move from being just a physical impact to an emotional or mental one or we can stop it in its tracks and keep it at just a physical impact. How do we do that though? How do we ensure we keep it at bay? We could step into it. Step into the distance. We could either become the hermits I know I’m enjoying being or we could make a little bit more effort to make that call (as traumatic as it is for us introverts when the person doesn’t answer…or even worse, when they do) or visit (where legally and safely possible during these times).

Life can be hard; but having the right people in our lives somehow makes it all worth it. Sounds corny, huh? But I really do believe this. And this is from a self-proclaimed introvert-turned-hermit. Making an effort is hard but trying to convince ourselves that we don’t need people (the right people) in our lives is even harder. Extroverts are probably laughing at me right now (enjoy this moment while it lasts), but for us introverts, well for me anyway, it’s taken distance (and lots of it apparently) to accept that relationships are important.

And you can either step away from the relationships or step towards them. We get to decide on the length of the distance, and for now, maybe this is not true physically, but it is completely true emotionally.