Hi Logan, sorry to hear about the difficulty of long distance.

I don't have a SO but I can sympathise a bit as I live abroad from a lot of my family (I'm born and brought up in the UK but a dual national with the US). One thing that's been difficult is my Grandma is 93 and I last saw her in 2014 and had planned to travel to the states this year.

As for dealing with it.... video chats are the obvious thing though as Alyx said, that can be a bit bittersweet.

It sounds like one of the hardest things for you is not knowing when. If you could just have a date, that would make it easier to look forward to, maybe regardless of when that date was.

My only suggestion is to try and take it one day at a time - I know that's easier said than done!

But I read a piece about external vs internal optimism a while back. It was written by a man who had been a prisoner of war. He said that those who said things like "it'll be over by Christmas" or "we'll be rescued by [specific date]" coped well in the short term, but then mentally crashed when their arbitrary date they'd been working towards was passed. Their attitude sounds like optimism, but they're being optimistic about something external they can't control - that's more like false hope.

Instead, he talked about internal optimism. Instead of thinking "it'll be over by [date]", he would try thinking "however long it is, I will be ok" - so optimistic about his own ability to cope - something he has more control over.

Maybe you can think/talk about how you will be together eventually, even if you don't know when, and maybe... yeah, I like the suggestions Alyx had about watching shows together. I have a close friend in another country and pre-lockdown we went to the cinema 'together' a few times ie. we went on the same day as each other when the movie came out, cause each of us had no one to go with - but we both wanted to discuss it with someone immediately afterwards.

Also, I find setting up virtual versions of activities I'd otherwise have been doing on zoom/video chat has been nice. So when I can't meet someone at the pub, we go to 'the pub' on zoom, and have a beer, but like... some people have been a bit creative or done things like used a virtual pub background, or we've done a little pub quiz or something.

Or maybe you could create something together? I don't know if you do things like sing, or play music - but you could create a video of you singing together, or doing an activity together? You could then also watch it later, when not actively video calling. I've found that to be a really nice thing to do.

Anyway, sending love, and I hope it gets easier for you <3