Some of you may be wondering if it’s all worth it. Some of you were on the fence about the decision to start a long distance relationship in the first place. Still, others know it’s worth it, but still want it to be over. As someone who was in a long distance relationship until four weeks ago, when a certain excellent boy (Hey John!) moved over 800 miles up the coast to pursue both a me and a paramedicine degree, I know the hardships and the rewards of LDR's. For eight months we survived on texts, FaceTime, and phone calls during our mundane daily events. I flew down to visit twice and that was all we saw of each other for eight months.
I’m not going to lie to you, this is going to be one of the hardest things you’ve ever done. BUT. Have no fear. If you really, really, REALLY love this person, you will make it work. You have to stay positive, which is the hardest part. There will be times where you’ll be totally off schedule and out of sync, and it will be so frustrating that you'll want to cry. These will be few and far between. Eventually, you'll figure out what times work best to catch up and you'll start to be less bothered when they take more than .05 seconds to reply to you.
There will be times when you’re both so tired of being attached to your phone all day you’ll start arguing over anything. There will be times when one of you is very busy and then other one is bored out of their mind waiting for the other to pay attention to them. Through all of these things, you have to continue to tell yourself and your significant other, you can do this, even if you’re not talking about it in that moment.
You’re also going to have to make time for each other, which is hard when you’re trying to live your own life. If you have to schedule Skype dates so be it, as long as you get some time to just sit down and tell each other about your day and how the dryer ate your socks and how you hate your chemistry teacher but love your Crossfit instructor and how you miss each other more than you thought possible. While it might be a little difficult to make time for each other, it’s going to be even more difficult stay romantic with each other. When you are hundreds of miles apart and rarely see each other it’s even more important to make sure your significant other knows how much they mean to you.
When you feel like everything is going wrong, remember your relationship will not be like this for forever. Try and talk about where you see the relationship going. Maybe one of you sees it going further than the other, and that should be a sign to cut things off cleanly. And if one does think this, it shouldn’t be kept to yourself. Remember, even though you’re “talking” all day, they still can’t read your mind. No secrets guys! If you both are in agreement on where you’re headed, then you can always make yourselves feel better by planning when you can see each other next; plan the location, restaurants you want to eat at, and places you want to go.
At the end of the worst days, always remember it won’t always be like this. One day you’ll be able to wake up from a nap and roll over and find your favorite person in the whole world snoring louder than a thunderstorm. You won’t mind though, because you’ll remember when you were so far away from each other that this was a moment you would’ve killed for.
