Meet my boyfriend:

My boyfriend's name is Jordan, and we've been together for two years and two months. Throughout my senior year, numerous people told me that long distance relationships, "weren't worth it," or they would say, "I was in a long distance relationship once, and it made us hate each other." The Naked Brothers Band even has a song titles "Long Distance" that says, "Long distance relationships will kill you." How can you argue with The Naked Brothers Band? As you can imagine, I was left feeling extremely discouraged. I was (and still am) pretty certain that Jordan would be the guy I spend the rest of my life with, so to have people tell me that our relationship wasn't going to last made me feel devastated.

The night before I left for college, I considered not moving away, taking a semester off, and going to a community college in the spring semester just so I could be with him. Thankfully, I snapped out of that pretty quick. After all, he was only going to be three and a half hours away, and if I desperately needed to see him, I could always take a train home. Jordan and I are about a month into our "long distance" relationship, and I honestly believe that our relationship has never been stronger.

Jordan and I have been together since he was a freshman in high school and I was a sophomore, so we never really learned how to be Kady without Jordan or vise versa. Spending time apart has allowed both of us to grow in new ways that we couldn't have done otherwise. For example, living on my own has showed me how to reach out to people. Since I always had Jordan to go to events with, I never branched out of my comfort zone and talked to new people. He was always there, so I never felt the need to meet new people. I've started to get involved in clubs at my college, and now I am learning how to reach out to people and be more intentional with introducing myself.

Although Jordan and I are both growing in new ways, there is no way to ignore the downfalls of having a long distance relationship. Since Jordan is still in high school, he spends his entire day at school, extracurricular activities, and his homework. However, now that I only have two classes a day and don't have any practices to go to, I have a lot more free time on my hands. As a result, Jordan and I do not talk as much as we are normally used to. Somedays our schedules do not match up at all and we may not be able to have a conversation.

However, I'm not feeling a strain on our relationship at all. Even though we aren't talking as much as we did when I was at home, we both still have a firm bond built of love, trust, and understanding. We understand that somedays we won't be able to talk, and we've learned to accept it. The trust that we have in each other never leads to either of us over-analyzing the times we aren't speaking, and we are allowing each other to have incredible new experiences on our own. Most importantly, our relationship is built on love. Not only is our relationship build on our love for each other, but also on our love for Jesus. We have worked hard to have a Christ centered relationship, and I believe that our great amounts of trust and understanding also comes from our faith in Christ. We both understand that if our relationship is in God's plan then it will last. If it doesn't, we take comfort in knowing that He has another plan that is better for us.

The moral of my story is that long distance relationships are not always a lost cause. Jordan and I have both grown as individuals, and our relationship has benefitted greatly from it. We now know how to live life independently while also being in a relationship. If you are in a long distance relationship, trust your partner. Understand that you don't have to speak to them 24/7 to keep the love that you have. If you believe your relationship is worth keeping, fight for it. Make the best out of whatever situations may come your way, because you can only grow from them.