Now, you’ve all gotten to know me just a little bit. I wanted to tell you guys about what seemed to be the longest year of my life; not only because it was the year of COVID-19, but because my boyfriend was stationed in South Korea for over a year.
But let’s take it back a little bit. I told you a little bit about tapping him out at bootcamp graduation. After that we drove him to the base he was going to be stationed at for AIT (Advanced Individual Training) and dropped him off. After AIT he was able to fly home and visit for Christmas. Right before New Year’s, he had to leave for South Korea. This was still a time before COVID-19. With that in mind, his mom and I were planning a trip to visit him while he was in South Korea, and that kept us sane knowing we were going to see him.
Then BANG—COVID-19 hit and changed the world as we knew it.
We were no longer able to go to South Korea, heck, he wasn’t even allowed to leave base most of the time. This truly took a toll on all of us, me, his mom, and him. He was stuck on the other side of the world, during a pandemic.
On top of that, South Korea is ahead of us by 13 hours. This made everything difficult. We would facetime a lot, but for one of us it was early morning and the other it was late at night. It was something we had to get used to. We hit a rough patch, but made it through, together.
It took many Facetime calls and regular phone calls when he was unable to Facetime (Facetime is so much better so I could see his face). I wanted to send more packages than I did, but COVID-19 made it a little hard in 2020 as I wasn’t leaving my house.
Fast forward a little bit, now it is December 2020, we still have a little bit of hope he will be allowed to come home for Christmas. But unfortunately, he could not. It was our first Christmas apart, and it was awful. Then, he couldn’t come home for New Year’s either, so that was our second New Year’s apart. This isn’t something I wanted to get used to, but I did.
Finally in January 2021, he got orders to be stationed back in the U.S. I could not be more excited. He still was not able to have leave, so his younger brother and I took the initiative to drive
his car across the country to him in February.
It had been since December of 2019 since I last saw him at this point, over a year. When we finally arrived at his base, I jumped out of the car, ran to him and jumped on him. I thought the tap out at graduation was the best hug, I was wrong, this was.
2020 was a very weird time. I was also doing long distance but was able to actually live with my now husband during some of the pandemic. I’m so sorry you didn’t get to see him for a year.