Almost all my life, I have played basketball. In eighth grade, I played on an AAU team with some girls that I would go to high school with (from surrounding middle schools). I knew them all except for one. The one girl that I did not know scared me. She gave me that feeling that if I said one thing wrong, she would beat me up.. Flash forward to freshman year of high school. That girl is now my best friend.
We did everything together. From football games to hanging out at each other's houses to playing basketball together, and my favorite, late-night McDonald's runs for Dr. Pepper and Lemonades. She was the best friend I ever had. Then we found out that she was moving away. At the end of sophomore year, she and her family moved all the way to Colombia, Missouri. Six hours away. Both of us were scared, honestly, I did not know if our friendship would continue. But, about four years later, that girl is still my best friend.
It has been a long road of continuing our friendship, but we have been able to keep our friendship strong and alive. I am going to share with you a few different ways we have been able to keep our friendship going.
Texting Each Other
This is probably obvious. But it is very important. We text each other to keep one another in the loop on what is going on in our lives. Since we live so far apart, we do not see what is happening in the other's life. If something crazy happens in my life, I text her almost immediately, and she does the same. It is just one way to stay involved with each other.
One thing that I always keep in mind is we do not text every day. That is totally okay! You do not need to text your friend every second of the day (if you want to then do it! It is just my experience, you may have a different one). Honestly, we have gone weeks without actually texting and then get back into conversations as if we had been talking every day. It is just how our friendship works.
FaceTimes and Late-Night Calls
This is kind of a funny one to talk about, because I am Facetiming her as I am writing this. This is something we started doing right after she moved away to Missouri. Our calls and FaceTimes are for those specific times when we need to talk about something important. Or whenever we really just miss each other, which is what we are doing right now. It's an easy way for us to be together while we are still 6 hours apart.
VIsiting!
This one is a little harder. As I mentioned earlier, we both have completely different lives now. So we have to find times in our schedules so we can meet. We got lucky during our junior year, and our spring breaks matched up perfectly, so I drove to Missouri for the week and we went to Branson, Missouri. There have been other times over the summer that we have seen each other, but there have been plenty of times that we have made plans that have fallen through. It is just something that comes along with the whole long-distance thing. Some things just do not work out.
Final Thoughts
Those are just three different things that we have done in order to keep our friendship strong. In this day in age, it is easier than ever to keep long-distance relationships strong. You have the technology. It takes effort, and it is not always easy, but if that person is important in your life, you can always find a way to keep in touch. If I have learned anything from this experience, it is that good friends are worth the extra effort it takes, no matter how far away
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