Back in July 2021, I wrote about a boy who had arrived into our lives. My youngest daughter loved him and he loved her. For the romantics amongst us, an update. 

They started their relationship aged 16 and 17 in the skirts of a global pandemic and communicated by digital words and video chats. As restrictions allowed, they would meet in a park and spend hours and hours together outside on a bench, in sub-zero temperatures. That autumn their road was set to part as he left town to go to university 400 hundred miles away. A year later, she would also go to university and that distance would take on another 100 miles. They accepted they might drift apart but acknowledged they’d loved each other very much in their half a year.   

For various reasons, they have recently both ended up back on their home ground. This month they celebrate a two-year anniversary. In the grand scheme of life, it might sound like nothing very much, but I see it as both a huge milestone (whilst always keeping an open mind) and a reason to be proud of them and happy for them. 

Time has ticked along and they have each had tricky bumps in their individual paths, but not with each other. To each other they have been a listening ear, an immovable strength and shining beacons. Once he drove 500 miles to surprise her – he phoned her on a dark winter night, as she struggled to make sense of university life, and he simply said “look out your window”. 

As the world continues to lurch through one sorrowful and disappointing news story after another, we must remember that it will calm. If the pandemic was our spilled milk, we are still in the mopping stages where we chase all that happened (during, after and because of it) about the floor as it dribbles into cracks and creases. In the meantime, and for our mental health, we have choice. We can turn our heads, eyes, ears and minds towards better news. And I hope maybe this little story of love continuing to find a way through might be that for you today. 

Love from

The room above the garage

A Moodscope member