Un-locked

I am writing this story because I was sitting in Norton Common when I saw a lady crouching down chalking something. When I went to look, it said “lockdown love stories” so I would like to share mine with you.

Last year just before lockdown in January I flew to Ohio USA to meet a lady I had been communicating with online for some time. She was incarcerated and due out in April 2020 I went over beforehand to meet her in a visit. I did this, and spent the week with her daily for 4 hours each time, in visits. I also met her family. The plan was to be there when she was released from a 10 year sentence. Be there at the gates to welcome her in April. Well, that didn’t happen due to flights being cancelled and I couldn’t be there to throw my hands around her and start our lives together. So instead she called me and the first person she spoke to on the phone was me as her dad drove her away for the first time. So housing was not as we expected due to me not being there so it was a frantic time to find hotels where her probation allowed her to stay, and her having to go through things alone instead of with me, using everyday things she hadn’t for a decade, being alone after years with other people, so WhatsApp became a lifeline for us, I can’t remember the amount of times I went to a pizza parlours or fast food restaurants with K. on the other end of the phone. Or to Walmart, anywhere, I would be on the other end of the video call encouraging her as she has anxiety so a lot of the time I would comfort her when she was having meltdowns because family members would be nasty or people would let her down. So I would be 5 hours in front so I celebrated 2 New Years Eves, and would end up going to bed at 2 or 3 in the morning because she was behind by 5 hours. There was a time when she almost lost her place to live, and that was so stressful because I was here with only a phone to sort a place to live out with 2 weeks before she became homeless. Or the time we had to rush to get her a new hotel that day because her location fell out of the area she was released to and with her family not being that helpful it was all upon me. Anyway now while I’m still waiting for the flights to open we spend weekends watching the same film together on Netflix whilst sitting beside each other with WhatsApp for 3 hours. Talking and doing the things normal couples would do. So I have gone through K. meeting her boys for the first time in 10 years, we left WhatsApp on and I was almost there to be a part of the milestone. We go for walks together, and I see Cincinnati and K. sees where I live. When she has a problem I try and help her as best I can, whether that’s calling American stores to sort out orders, talking to her boys to bring them all closer together and even order pizza in the same own she lives because she didn’t have a credit card. I had phone bills which was into the 3 digests. I took calls at 4am for hours and had to start work feeling half dead, or the time I had to order her a taxi as she was at a store and had no way or idea how to get back, it was some of the most stressful times of my life. Now we are more stable and relaxed in waiting to be together. We still do our date nights and have talks in bed, all over WhatsApp. But I believe we have got very close because of this and when we get to be together we know far more about one another already than we would have just meeting and starting a new relationship. So the lockdown has actually been a help as well as making life difficult. But together we have come through it and ready to start our lives together with me moving over there and being together with K. and her boys. In the meantime we shall continue to use WhatsApp as a lifeline until we throw our arms around each other at the airport once we meet soon.