Author Spotlight
Riley Atkinson
As Barstow junior Oscar Stack packed up the last of his suitcases in August, East senior Halley Vogts hugged him tighter than she ever had before — her boyfriend was leaving for Ireland for the fall, and she didn’t know exactly when he’d be back.
They both knew travelling 4,000 miles to see one another wasn’t an option, so scheduled FaceTime calls through the six-hour time difference had to do. But after starting their relationship in the midst of a pandemic, they were used to experiencing everything but the “norm.”
“[Covid] was like a weird test,” Vogts said. “Like, ‘Okay, he’s gonna leave in a few weeks so you better get used to this.’”
Stack has dual citizenship in the US and in Ireland, where his family is from, so he typically spends every school break across the Atlantic. But with the coronavirus cases raging through the U.S., he and his family were forced to stay in KC for the summer due to travel restrictions — which happened to be when he and Vogts began dating. Now that he’s able to travel back to Ireland with his dual citizenship, his family decided to live there for now as he does online school — but they feel as though the pandemic prepared them for the long distance.
With movie theaters closed and restaurants shut down to strictly curbside pick-up during May and June, Vogts and Stack had an abnormal first-date stage. They masked up to sit on each other’s patios or take one of their dog’s for a walk down the block — but they never had to worry about the awkwardness, according to Vogts.
“It was really nice honestly,” Vogts said. “With him I didn’t really have the chance to have awkward dates because there was no place to go on dates. It was always very natural.”
As COVID cases continued to increase, they mastered the art of FaceTime, they’d go to Leawood Park to watch the stars and their new favorite pastime became picnics.
Eventually their parents felt comfortable enough to let them in each other’s quarantine bubbles.
“I feel like it was weirdly nice to be like,‘You’re the only person that I know I’m okay to be around,’” Vogts said. “‘Like I’m kissing you, you’re kissing me, we obviously both don’t have [the coronavirus]’ . . . It was just nice when I would go see him to just be like this is boyfriend time. Not really gonna talk about the pandemic, not gonna worry about it, not gonna think about how I can’t do anything now.”
It wasn’t that they were ignorant towards the severity of the pandemic, but they felt as though being with each other or FaceTiming could help lift the tension surrounding their everyday lives — the news that flashed terrifying facts about the chaos of 2020 felt like it almost disappeared when they were together.
That feeling of relief carries into now, even though they’re 4,000 miles away. Yes, they have to coordinate FaceTimes — Stack occasionally stays awake until 4 a.m. to call Vogts after she gets off work at 10 p.m. — but they love that their connection has stayed consistent.
Whether they need to rant about a sassy customer at work or the stress-inducing online classes, they can text each other throughout the day for moral support — a routine that started in the very beginning of quarantine.
“I just got used to FaceTiming once in a while, texting everyday, just kind of keeping in touch,” Stack said. “[We learned] how to keep up a relationship when you’re far away because it’s hard . . . I think the distance and not being able to see each other is what COVID prepared us for.”
They’re not sure when Stack will be back — could be the end of October, could be January — it all depends on how the coronavirus cases change.
But through the two months of long distance so far, they’ve found a routine of updating the other person a few times a day, without any pressure. It might be a quick “I love you” text or a picture of the wildlife on one of Stack’s hikes, but the little pieces of communication are helping them through.
“It definitely is nice to have someone to just kinda forget about stuff with, even if it’s over the phone or texts,” Vogts said. “He could be like ‘Hey I saw this really cool bird today’ and I’m like ‘Wow that’s a really cool bird.’ I know it’s not for very long, but even that little tiny bit of normalcy is really nice and really refreshing.”
And it’s the same type of communication they learned at the beginning of their relationship during quarantine — they’ve mastered the skill of feeling connected even if they aren’t together.
wowza