How the coronavirus is affecting my long distance relationship

Of course you have the obvious, it is not possibel for people to just travel whereever they want to go. however, my current situation and how the virus has affected my relationship goes all the way back to February this year.

February 2020

Earlier this year, Laziz and I were still happily living in Korea together. We had a small apartment and both had a job. I had three jobs actually, haha. Besides working at a bar, I was also teaching English at two schools. Safe to say, we ‘had it all’. We were happy, living our lives. But as you might know, the virus already struck South Korea in February, right after it started in China. Due to the huge amount of panic the virus caused, I lost both my teaching jobs. Schools were closing and not opening anytime soon. I still had my job at the bar, but customers stopped coming and eventually we had to close down as well.

May 2020

After me losing all my jobs, we were on a tighter budget. However, the worst was yet to come. When May was approaching in the fastest pace ever, we realized I could no longer stay in South Korea. My visa was expiring soon, and in order to be able to stay, I had to leave and re-enter the country. But South Korea had closed all their borders, and returning would not be possible. I had to book a flight to the Netherlands before May 18.

So we gave up our apartment and moved out on May 6. We stayed in a nice AirBnb in Hongdae for a couple of days. The timing could not be worse, because Laziz had his exams. So we did not do anything really, only studying and me just playing Animal Crossing. 

I bought a return ticket to return on August 2^nd, not expecting the virus to keep its grip on the world for so long. With the mindset of me returning after a few months, I left a lot of stuff behind and also the goodbye was not that emotionally loaded as it would have been knowing we could not see each other for over half a year.

Now

The return flight to Seoul got cancelled in June and South Korea still has its borders closed to me as we speak. So I have no idea when I can see Laziz again. I struggle a lot with how to deal with this situation and truly don’t know how long I can handle the situation like this. All I can hope for, is South Korea to open their borders to me and my new job to be kind to let me travel if possible.