Pretty much all of my friends live somewhere far away. I’m in Alabama, and they’re all spread out. I have some in California, Colorado, New York, and then my boyfriend lives in New Orleans. Of course, I have friends and family close to where I live, but the things I would do to have everyone in the same city as me are pretty extreme.
I’m not going to claim that I’m an expert on long-distance relationships. In fact, I’m probably far from it. But, I have a few ways to make them a little less brutal.
When it comes to my college friends, we went from all to literally nothing. I lived with my closest friends, and then the ones I didn’t live with I saw pretty much every day anyway. We’d do everything together. From going to the library to study (aka gossip) to going out to dinner to grocery shopping to eating breakfast before class to watching TV to walking to Walgreens down the street. I was very rarely without at least one of them by my side. And I loved it. I’m the kind of person that would much rather be with someone than alone, and most of them were the same way.
That being said, once we all left our little college houses and dispersed back into the real world, it hit us hard. I mean now we’re all in different time zones and on different work schedules and hanging out with our new friends. It’s depressing. It sucks, frankly. For example, I randomly called one of my friends on Sunday afternoon when I was taking my dog for a walk, but she had just gotten to her brother’s house. She didn’t end up leaving until like 11 pm my time and I was already asleep. Then I called her back yesterday when she was on her way home from work but then she had to meet someone else. We squeezed in a good 10-minute conversation and it was nice to catch up, but it’s not the same.
I had another friend who went through a health scare recently and it killed me not being there for her in person. I didn’t know whether to check in on her daily (or hourly) or just let her be with her family. I didn’t know how she really was. I didn’t know anything. And I hated it. I sent her flowers just to let her know that I was thinking of her, but she was my roommate for three of the four years of college, and her going through that made me realize how much I miss not being with my friends constantly.
I think the biggest piece of advice I can give you if you’re also away from your friends is to just check-in. When they cross your mind or you see a picture of them on your Instagram, send them a quick text that you miss them or you’re thinking of them. It’s small, but when my friends do that it makes my day.
Anyway, if any of my long-distance friends are reading this, I miss you. More than you know.
I miss snuggling on the couch and eating late-night snacks. I miss watching hours and hours of YouTube videos on random Sunday nights. I miss going to Happy Hours every night of the week and knowing exactly which restaurants had what Happy Hour and when. I miss randomly running into you on campus, even though that rarely happened because we knew each other’s schedules like the back of our hands and met up on the quad when we did have overlap. I miss date dashes and mixers even though we were the worst sorority girls in our pledge class. I miss waiting in line for The Downer, Press Play, and The Walrus with you. Remember The Walrus? I miss Rio Thursdays and Karaoke Wednesdays. I miss telling you about my professors and homework assignments. I miss sitting in the library and hiding from people we didn’t want to see. I miss sneaking into our sorority house and “stealing” snacks and food and chaser. I miss getting Indian Food with you and eating it on our front porch. I miss that front porch and the nights, and afternoons, and mornings, and tailgates, and parties on it.
I miss you!!!
Thanks for reading!
xo
Chloe