Maplab
A Love Story in Three Maps
My relationship has unfolded across three cities. But now my boyfriend and I are heading into uncharted territory.
For Liam’s last birthday, I got him three maps—one for each of the three cities where we’ve lived as a couple. I bought the templates for these maps on Etsy, printing them off at Walgreens and mounting them on our kitchen wall in flimsy, black frames. Read left to right like a geographic sentence, the maps show better than any photo album or stack of correspondence how our relationship has developed across time and space.
Now, ever since Liam told me he was leaving, I catch myself staring at the maps at least once a day, as if these representations of where we have been can help me navigate to wherever it is we are going.