Long-distance friendships are difficult. You cannot be physically there for them, you can’t help them when they’re sad, when they want to go buy something for another friend or a particular event that they need nicer clothes for. You can’t hang out with them on the weekends or the days that seem like you just need to go on a drive with that friend that makes you feel as though everything is just fading away, and you have no problems in the universe and that nothing can ever bring you down again. There is no going to the movies or the mall, just because you’re friends, and that’s what you do. No traditions that you two always take part in that you made up yourselves, no sleeping over at one another’s houses. They can’t meet your new cat or look at your newly dyed hair in person, and cameras never quite catch the color just right. You can’t run through Wal-Mart together, just for the hell of it or drive through a fast food restaurant together or introduce them to your parents properly. It’s extremely difficult to give them birthday presents or Christmas presents or little Valentine’s Day notes because you’re the only Valentine each other needs, so instead, you have to substitute for writing her something because she’s always said she loved your writing and sending her a picture. Which never feels as satisfactory as you want it to. There are no late night drives to that place you always go to or any going to concerts together or all but dragging them along with you to some event or another you were forced into attending so you won’t be as bored with them there as you know you would be without them. Never have you felt that sense of overwhelming joy and contentment as you sit with your best friend with them or what it’s like to know you always have someone and somewhere to run to when you need to be anywhere but your own home. Instead of hearing constant nagging about how you go out so often, you get to hear your parents complain about how you are always inside and on your computer or your phone. And no one seems to realize just how freaking hard it is when your best – and nearly only – friend is thousands of miles away and that, yes, it is possible to form a connection with someone whose face you did not see as soon you met them and that you can only talk to through some type of screen. And how, what you desire most in the world is to see them, hug them – just be with them. But you can’t because they’re so far away.
i FEEL THIS. SO HARD. my best friend of nearly three years lives a whopping 4377 miles away, and i always miss her. it’s so hard to find time to talk to each other because she’s waking up when i’m asleep, eating lunch when i’m waking up, eating dinner when i’m eating lunch, and asleep when i’m eating dinner. i’m always one step behind her, but we’ve made it this far. we try to facetime whenever we can, and we’re always sending each other ridiculous snapchats. i want so badly to have a physical best friend that i can do “normal” best friend things with, but i think the real genuine connection we have with each other despite all this distance that separates us makes up for those 4377 miles.