My partner and I moved in together the same week San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced the first two confirmed cases of COVID-19 in San Francisco.
Up until that point, I had been fretting about fitting my sweaters into our joint closet, deciding who would cook when, and how to split costs on our deposit, furniture, and groceries. I had deeper concerns, too. Would we grow to hate one another? Would resentment fester over my hair clogging the shower drain or his resistance to throwing away old shoeboxes? Would moving in together end up moving us apart?
Then COVID-19 arrived in San Francisco, or at least, our knowledge that it was here (it was likely circulating quietly for weeks). The virus that had felt palatably abstract in faraway places like China, Iran, and Italy was spreading across our 49-square-mile city. And a cough building in the back of my throat was making me think it had already come for me.
I had expected to spend more time together. What I had not anticipated was spending every single minute together for weeks.
All of the fears I had about taking this step toward more permanent commitment with my partner were replaced by other fears. Fears of COVID-19. And what it would do to our relationship as we navigated a crisis during this life transition.
Both of us were instructed to work from home shortly after we emptied the contents of our old apartments and piled them into our new, shared one-bedroom. People were also being encouraged to “social distance.” Naturally, I had expected to spend more time together. What I had not anticipated was spending every single minute together for weeks.
In our new home — now also our new office — we’re working hunched over our laptops across from one another at our kitchen table. It’s one of the few items we’ve agreed to buy and keep. Less than a foot separates the screens. Or the anxieties that have sprouted in the wake of the coronavirus.
It just so happens that right around the time COVID-19 officially reached San Francisco (and the time we moved in together), both my partner and I developed a cough. A dry cough.
Granted, this was at the tail end of the days when you could be sick without necessarily being coronavirus sick. Our coughs were sporadic. We didn’t have fevers. But I did start to feel pain in my chest. And I couldn’t tell if my lungs were filling with pneumonia, panic, or COVID-19.
At first, we warned our friends about the cough. Then we’ve stopped seeing our friends altogether. More time together, at home, which still lacks basic furniture. Now, the city has ordered residents to shelter-in-place for three weeks, only leaving when necessary.
Our conversations about dishware and what size carpet we should get for our living room have dried up. Instead, we debate whether we’ve bought enough rice. Or whether I should call a doctor again.
Before moving in together, I worried that the mundanity of everyday life would kill all romance and excitement between my partner and me. COVID-19, it turns out, has made our life even smaller and more mundane than I could have ever imagined.
Out of fear for others more than ourselves, we barely leave our apartment. Jeans and mascara are reserved for special occasions, like an afternoon walk to the park two blocks away. Deprived of a TV, we gossip about the man we see sunbathing and chatting on the phone for hours on the roof directly across from our kitchen window. We’ve settled into an easy equilibrium over cooking and cleaning because we have no schedules to coordinate.
In an unexpected twist of circumstance, COVID-19 has come to define this rather momentous step in our relationship. It’s not exactly the transition I would have wanted for us. But the crisis has also slapped me with some much-needed perspective and gratitude.
I feel lucky because we are young and — barring our immediate symptoms — healthy, so I am hopeful we will see the end of COVID-19. I feel lucky we have jobs that allow us to work from home and can weather months of uncertainty in the stock market when I know many others don’t have this to fall back on. I feel lucky we have the resources to order food and basic necessities online if it comes to that.
Self-quarantined in our small apartment, inundated with news and confusion about COVID-19, our love has, miraculously, found a way to grow.
Most of all, I feel lucky to navigate all of this with someone I love. At a time when public safety demands social distance, I feel grateful to have so little space separating my partner and me.
He’s become an expert at understanding when anxiety is pressing on me as much as any virus I might have. He also prods me with logic and humor when I verge toward the melodramatic (which is often).
Self-quarantined in our small apartment, inundated with news and confusion about COVID-19, our love has, miraculously, found a way to grow. Much like the gigantic fiddle-leaf fig plant we bought to fill our empty living room.
Perhaps the real test of our relationship will come when the fears of COVID-19 subside and we, once again, have to come to a consensus about a couch. “Blue or gray?” we occasionally remember to ask one another. Whatever we decide, I think we’ll make it through.
