My boyfriend has been accepted to Cornell University.
Holy crap, right? I’m proud. I’m excited. I’m ecstatic. I’m…
Terrified.
I am terrified because my boyfriend has been accepted to Cornell University, and I go to school in California, 3,000 miles away.
It doesn’t change the fact that I’m proud and excited and ecstatic for him. The most important thing is that he is somewhere where he is able to realize his academic aspirations, somewhere that makes him happy. But as the days of summer all-too-swiftly burn away, the weight of those 3,000 miles falls more and more heavily upon my shoulders. I think about choppy Skype calls and how both of us will probably be grappling with uncooperative campus Wi-Fi signals. I think about a three hour time disparity exacerbated by two busy college schedules. I think about only seeing him during winter and summer vacations, and then I try not to think about only getting to see him during winter and summer vacations.
The past three years we’ve dealt with an hour of distance between us, reduced to a manner of seconds over the phone. We are both independent people with our own lives and our own goals and that works for us. I was the first to move to a new city, so of course, it was hard at first, but I quickly grew accustomed to meetings every other weekend and phone calls after work in the afternoons.
It’s scary to be forcibly removed from your comfort zone.
It’s scary to take a good thing and put it under pressure, to think about being with someone and yet being alone, to think about stretching the distance between you. I’ve heard the long-distance horror stories. I know you have too.
So when my boyfriend told me that he was accepted to Cornell, I cried. And I felt terrible for crying because I knew that it was not the thing that a good supportive girlfriend would do, but there were a lot of tears and they would not be stopped. “I’m just gonna miss you,” I sniffled. “I’m going to miss you so much.” It isn’t that I didn’t want him to go. It’s just that I also really, really wanted him to stay.
But with time, and more than a little effort, I’ve started to create a new comfort zone. I’ve been thinking about how precious our time together will be, how this will only reinforce the value of the moments we get to share. I’ve been thinking about the sparkle in his eyes when he tells me about learning something new, the way his face lights up when he tells me about a blossoming opportunity—of which I am sure there will be many. I’ve been thinking about how I know that we will make this work.
Because what we have is stronger than the miles between us.
