One day, the countdown appeared.
A small calendar.
A circled date.
A number growing smaller.
Someone had turned waiting into something I could actually see.
It was no longer just “someday.”
No longer a promise floating somewhere in a distant future.
It was a journey measured in days.
I remember the number forty-nine.
Forty-nine days until we hoped to see each other again.
A number large enough to feel cruel, yet small enough to check every morning.
We had counted down from even higher numbers before.
Waiting had become our little ritual.
A quiet way of reminding ourselves that every passing day was bringing us, at least in our imagination, a little closer.
We talked about spending a week together.
Seven days without having to say goodnight through a screen.
Seven mornings without checking whether the internet was working.
We talked about the city where we might meet.
About long walks with nowhere to rush.
About places we wanted to discover together.
And about a dance.
I don’t know why I imagined that dance so often.
Maybe because dancing doesn’t need translation.
Maybe because, after so many conversations spent searching for the right words, I longed for a moment when we wouldn’t need any.
I imagined an instant camera.
Real photographs we could hold in our hands instead of only looking at them on our screens.
Photographs that could be left on a table, tucked into a wallet, or slipped between the pages of a book.
I thought about a projector, too.
About evenings when we could watch our pictures appear on a wall, laughing at the expressions we’d captured and our clumsy attempts to take the perfect photograph.
I loved imagining such simple things.
Because after so much distance, simplicity had become the greatest luxury of all.
There were gifts, too.
Small things that would have meant very little to a stranger.
A bracelet.
Photo magnets.
A dress in a deep shade of red.
Objects that carried more meaning than their price tags.
Because in love, a gift isn’t always worth what it costs.
Sometimes its value lies in the time spent choosing it.
In imagining the smile it might bring.
In wishing you could be there when it was finally unwrapped.
I was learning new things about that person almost every day.
The favourite drink to start the morning.
The food that sounded best after an exhausting day.
The little things that could bring a moment of peace.
Coffee.
Sweet drinks.
Simple food with bold flavours.
Details that might have seemed insignificant to anyone else.
But I remembered them.
I collected them in my mind like little stones from a beach I hoped to return to.
It felt natural to want to know all those things.
Not just the big dreams or the beautiful promises.
But the small preferences, the habits, the ordinary details that turn a stranger into someone familiar.
We also talked about the possibility that, one day, the distance might be travelled in the opposite direction.
That I wouldn’t always be the one leaving.
That there might be an arrival.
A visit.
Perhaps even the beginning of a life where goodbyes wouldn’t happen so often.
But reality came with its own conditions.
Documents.
Travel arrangements.
Money.
Schedules.
Work.
We lived in different countries, and every romantic plan required a very unromantic list of practical steps.
There were worries about housing, rent, debts, work, and the future.
And I had responsibilities of my own.
A home.
A child.
A life that couldn’t simply be put on hold.
It wasn’t easy.
And yet, we kept talking.
Looking for solutions.
Imagining that every obstacle could be overcome, one at a time.
Sometimes I received messages about a future together.
About the hope that what we had would never end.
About “forever.”
I didn’t hear a contract.
I wasn’t asking for guarantees.
I heard a wish.
And I wished for the same thing.
I had begun imagining the airport.
The first few seconds of seeing each other again.
The moment I would recognise, among all the people, the face I had been looking at every evening through my phone.
I wondered whether I would smile.
Whether I would cry.
Whether I would stand completely still for a moment, not knowing what to do with all the emotions I’d been carrying for so many days.
Or whether I would run straight into that embrace.
I imagined open arms.
The distance disappearing.
My phone forgotten somewhere inside a bag.
And in every version of that future, one thing remained certain.
This time, there would be no fence between us.
When people make plans, they believe they are moving closer to the future.
That every day crossed off a calendar is a small victory.
That every number growing smaller means another step forward.
We didn’t know that sometimes the future can move further away even as you count down towards it.
That you can have forty-nine days left until a reunion.
And only a few days left until a silence you never saw coming.
I was counting the days until we would be together again.
I didn’t know that soon, I would begin counting the days since we had last spoken.
To be continued…
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