Here Are 13 Things I Have Learned During My Separation — Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents

Obviously, a time of separation gives you reasons to reflect on your life and relationship. Not all lessons are about the relationship itself. Some are useful in other situations. All have come with a lot of sadness, pain, and struggle. But good things, too. Some of you are on the run, to escape a real threat to your welfare. Others don’t have that layer of fear, but are still struggling with significant challenges including financial.

1. There is such a thing as remote control memory. At home, we have the same remote upstairs and downstairs, one I’ve used for over a decade. Here, the remote is quite different. My fingers don’t naturally know the order of the buttons so I’m constantly opening the wrong screen, hitting the main menu button, and squinting at the remote to figure out where I did wrong. Don’t get me started on turning on and off close captions. E and I have an agreement that he’s in charge of the remote. This reduces my utterances of “Oh Fuck” when the telly is on.
2. When you stay in a friend’s home for months, you pick up on things like how to use the washer, where the packages are delivered, which food is up for grabs. But what never changes in waking in the middle of the night and thinking, for just a brief second, that you are home. I still expect the…