Pandemic Love #3: Of Course I Still Love You Loss of Signal
By Jeanne Donegan
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On Saturday afternoon, May 30th, SpaceX launched two white astronauts into space. At the same exact time, miles and miles below, people were mobilizing in the streets -- pained, outraged and demanding justice for Black lives violently taken by the hands of an abusive and corrupt police system. People on the ground put on their face masks, bled markers into cardboard, and risked their health in a pandemic to stand up for George Floyd and all who were killed before him. Enough had long been enough. And all the while, there were two white men floating in space, untethered.
Of Course I Still Love You is what Elon Musk named his droneship, one of many quippy names he’s cycled through in the SpaceX program. During the launch, there was a moment when the live video footage from the droneship cut out, just as the rocket booster was landing -- a blacked-out screen read “Of Course I Still Love You Loss of Signal.” I felt gut punched by this phrase. As if it was placating us, while simultaneously turning its back. As a person who is fascinated by space, I still have to ask -- what business do we have exploring a world beyond Earth when there is such an urgent need for resources and care on this planet?
The next morning, a friend shared a poingant clip from the 1970 Gil-Scott Heron spoken word poem, Whitey On The Moon:
A rat done bit my sister Nell.
(with Whitey on the moon)
Her face and arms began to swell.
(and Whitey's on the moon)
I can't pay no doctor bill.
(but Whitey's on the moon)
Ten years from now I'll be payin' still.
(while Whitey's on the moon)
50 years later there is still a loss of signal - a break in communication - a chasm in understanding. Some have the freedom to imagine the mystique of space travel, and others are teargassed for trying to imagine a world without state-sanctioned murder. To display the words of course I still love you across the screen as you rocket off far above those gathering on the ground is an insult and a betrayal. If love is demonstrated through action, what does this action demonstrate?
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What do I do if my relationship was already moving towards a breakup before the pandemic started and now we're in this stagnant space where it feels too complicated to end a relationship?
I feel as though I have little to no emotional support from my long time partner (officially three years in March) and every time I try to express any feelings of depression or feeling overwhelmed he either doesn't reply to my text or changes the subject. When I try to get an authentic response on how he feels all I'm given is "I'm alright" and the topic is quickly changed. We are both obviously depressed but don't talk about it and it feels like both of our avoidant coping mechanisms are out in full force, because of the pandemic. (I'm trying exceptionally hard to stop being avoidant and take my emotions seriously so it's hard to watch someone you care about be avoidant and keep you at arm's length.) Despite our long term relationship I've realised we don't have real emotional closeness (for what I want and need from a partner) and that's one of the main reasons I feel alone and isolated from someone that's meant to be with me, pre and post corona.
The pandemic makes it feel as though my life, or everyone's life, is on pause for a little while but the reality isn't that and technically life is still moving forward, it just makes ending a relationship so much harder. I feel lost and to be completely honest scared about the reality of ending a relationship during the corona-virus.
Corona paused my breakup
23, She/Her, Chicago
There’s never a good time to break up with someone or be broken up with. There will always be some reason to postpone -- a birthday, a holiday, a graduation, a pandemic, or full blown citywide protests for racial justice. Ultimately, it sounds like you are truly unhappy in this relationship and your needs are not being met by your partner.
The pandemic has throttled us all into emotional crisis in one way or another, and for better or worse, our responses to stress have been revealed in the process. This could be really affirming if you find out your partner can step in when you fall to pieces, and vice versa, but it’s important to acknowledge when your coping mechanisms are in direct conflict with one another. While the current conditions we are operating under are extreme, these conditions may be a good indicator of how your relationship will fare under stress in the future. Do you want to be with someone who shuts you out when you need their support most?
I once took a class in college called “Close Relationships Across the Lifespan” -- this was 10 years ago, but the one thing I remember was the professor’s opening slide: It’s better to be alone, than in a bad relationship. Now...this may sound like text you’d find on a cheesy poster hanging on the wall of a psychologist’s office in a Lifetime movie, but I can’t tell you how much I needed to hear that phrase. At the time, I was in an awful relationship -- not with an awful person, but with someone who had a lot of emotional turmoil to sort out. I was constantly feeling let down, ignored, shut out, and deprioritized. Like you, I tried to put all my hurt feelings aside and be there for this person, even as they pushed me away, but whenever I really needed support, they weren’t capable. I stayed in that relationship for years because I was scared to be alone - but I was already alone. I was giving away time and energy to someone who wasn’t giving it back to me. That was energy I could have spent on myself, my friends, my family -- on people who I could rely on to reciprocate.
It sounds like you already know this relationship is not working for you. Three years is a long time to be with someone without feeling the depth of emotional closeness you’re longing for. I know it’s so hard to see when you’re in it, but by staying with this person, you’re not only closing yourself off to meeting someone you could be far more compatible with, you’re also delaying your own personal growth. Don’t do that to yourself. I can tell by the way you are expressing your feelings that you have so much to give a partner, and you’re working hard to process and communicate more instead of shutting down. You deserve to be with someone who not only appreciates that, but respects it and returns it.
I would encourage you to think about what exactly you are scared of. Being alone? Have you distanced yourself from your support network of friends and family at the expense of this relationship? That can happen when we’re in unhealthy relationships. Reach out to your people and tell them you’re hurting. The people who love you haven’t gone anywhere, even if it’s been a while since you last spent quality time together. I know all of your emotions must be so amplified after this long period of isolation, followed by an eruption of public rage and political action, so be kind to yourself. Take the time to grieve the relationship, but consider incremental ways to start breaking your isolation. Whether you start seeing friends in safe ways, or you throw yourself into activism to help better your community. Give yourself things to do and things to look forward to, and build support for yourself outside the confines of this relationship. It will feel better soon, heartache really doesn’t last forever even though it always feels like it will. <3
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This Week’s Resources:
Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good by Adrienne Maree Brown
I’m in the middle of reading this, but I highly recommend so far.
The Sexually Liberated Woman podcast, hosted by Ev’Yan Whitney
Ev’Yan Whitney is a sexuality doula and sex educator whose podcast is designated to be a safe space to explore, heal, and express women and femme sexuality in a sex-saturated, sex-negative culture where our sexuality is still taboo and where our bodies (and what we choose to do with them) are still being policed.
Call Your Girlfriend podcast, hosted by Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman
June 5th episode on Police Abolition, interview with Mariame Kaba
This pod is housed within the relationship between two long distance best friends.
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin Diangelo
Currently sold out everywhere, but here is a PDF of an essay on the same topic that Diangelo published in 2011 -- talking about race within your intimate or familial relationships can be hugely challenging and it helps to understand the reactions of white fragility while navigating your conversations. I know this from experience of first confronting my own white fragility while in an intimate relationship with someone of color.