Imagine living so far away from your best friend, that there's an entire ocean between the two of you. For me, this is a reality. I met her when I was a junior in high school and I never thought our relationship would be what it is today. But here I am and there she is.
My school was so small, that it didn't have a foreign exchange program until I was an upperclassman. From that first year, there were a total of 7 foreign exchange students. That year, another best friend of mine, Maya, was in a class with a girl named Tessa. All I knew about her is that she was a tall foreign exchange student and, from what I had heard, had a cool accent. Maya and I had made plans to hang out together and I remember getting a text saying "Tessa is coming too". Little did I know, this was the start of a life long friendship that would change my life forever.
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My small, sad school had made a just as sad and cringe-worthy attempt at trying to heighten school spirit. They did this by making a parody song of "All About That Bass" and called it "All About Them 'Stangs" (named after our schools mascot, "The Mustangs"). They made an hour and a half long school assembly about it and that's how we ended our day. As I was waiting outside my school to be picked up by my friend, I met up with this girl who was I was supposed to hang out with. From there, we talked about how terrible the song was but then proceeded to sing it anyways. She did, in fact, have a cool Norwegian accent.
From there on, we added each other on Facebook and started hanging out more. I discovered she was from Norway and in the US for a year. I learned she came to the US to taste the hamburgers. She told me about her dogs and her terrible host family (that she eventually managed to escape by moving to another families home). She complained about American toilets and the school system. She confessed her love for elephants and Tyler Posey to me. There were hours filled with laughter, tears, and mutual anger at the world. This is what my 2014/2015 was, and though I was an angst-filled high school student, I had her. She was someone who not only offered me a new perspective on the world, but a new perspective on life.
June drew nearer and nearer. At the time, I knew she was going to go back to Norway but it was hard to face reality so I didn't think about it much. I treated each day like it was normal until her going away party. The both of us hated getting emotional, so she made me promise not to cry like our friend Maya did (sorry to throw you under the bus Maya) when she dropped me off after our final sleepover together. I remember hugging her and watching her and her host mom drive off. I thought to myself "That's it". I kept my promise and I didn't cry when she left, but I definitely cried later.
Fast forward to today. It's 2017 and the longest I haven't talked to her has been 3 days straight. I know Norway's time-zone is 9 hours ahead of Pacific Time and that when I'm going to bed she's just waking up. Every time I host an event, I automatically think of her on the guest list but then I have to stop myself because I realize she probably couldn't afford a plane ticket for a one day event. I have to admit, I've probably Googled "Flights to Norway" about 100 times more than the average person. Every break in school that I've had since she left, I think about the possibility of travelling to Norway to see her. My best friend is across the globe, but I feel like nothing has changed. I still talk to her every day and It's so normal it doesn't seem like there's distance sometimes. When she was here, I didn't have a car or a licence. I couldn't drive to her when she lived 7 minutes down the road, and I can't drive to her now when she's a 22 hour flight away.
I miss her, but I'm thankful for a lot. Without the foreign exchange program, I would have never met her. Without Internet, I couldn't keep in such constant contact. Without Maya, I might have never talked to her. As much as long distance straight up sucks, I love her and I'm lucky to have her in my life.
