Being best friends with someone for 9+ years isn't all it rainbows and sunshine, there are ups down and points where no one else but that person has seen you at. This is why maintaining that friendship long distance (when going to separate colleges) is imperative. Most say it will come easily if you are true friends but that isn't always the case.

Though three hours may seem not too far for most, it seems light years away from me and my best friend who have only minutes apart for the last decade. We were constantly going back and forth from each other's houses and were never apart for more than a couple days at most, even spending almost all of our vacations together.

Being with each other constantly we knew every detail about one another's life and didn't have to finish sentences let alone stories when explaining the latest gossip with one another. Things changed when we chose 2 different colleges three hours apart.

We still remained best friends, but with two different schedules and meeting new people it was hard to keep up with every detail of one another. Slowly each of us felt like we were losing one another and having had her always there it kind of felt like I was losing my rock and the person who kept me grounded. I was not only hurt but frustrated and so was she. It got to the point where we barely talked on the phone twice a week with sporadic texting. Of course, this only lasted a semester because we were reunited during winter break.

Being apart for the first time big time in our friendship was hard and this was something that we didn't even take into consideration because we thought since we were so close it would all work out, this is wrong. No matter how close y'all might think you are friendships still need to have work put into them. We weren't communicating correctly, especially when we both felt angry and upset, which only made the problem worse.

This just goes to show that reaching out, even if the other person isn't putting in as much effort as you at that moment, can really help things because eventually there will be a time when roles are reversed. Friendship, especially long distance, takes effort and time to maintain and it isn't easy but it is so worth it.