I recently just celebrated my five-year anniversary with my high school sweetheart. We started dating when I was a junior in high school and he was a senior. The following year he went off to college 2,000 miles away, so we decided to do long distance. Being in college is hard enough, but being in a long distance relationship makes it even harder. With the first few months of school down, I’m sure those going through long distance relationships are feeling sort of in a slump. I wrote this after the first time I saw Michael after not seeing him for seventy years. I thought it might help some who are going through long distance:
When I told people I was in a long-distance relationship, they looked at me like I was a lost puppy who needed a home. Some people looked at me with confused faces, like I was speaking a foreign language and others gave me that look of “Sorry, but it’s not gonna work sweetie”. And while some days I did feel like a lost puppy, long distance relationships shouldn’t be looked at like a giant no no or be frowned upon and assumed for disaster.
Long distance is hard, it takes love and hard work. It also takes communication, like a lot of communication. You turn in dinner dates for Facetime dates, and hugs and kisses for emojis. Being together for being miles apart, you’re going to fight and you’re gonna want to call it quits sometimes. But at the end of the day, it’s just one day closer to being with your best friend again.
Yeah, there’s times when you question why you are doing it, but when you finally see that person after so many days apart, you feel like that puppy who isn’t lost anymore and found a new home.
At first you’ll jump into their arms and cry tears of joy and squeeze them till you both loose feeling and can’t breathe and then you’ll step back and be like ‘okay, who is this person?’ and it’s weird but yet you’re so happy you can literally feel your heart smile.
So why did I do a long distance relationship?
Because that moment when you see them and you become overwhelmed with emotions and you’re speechless and can’t move and you hug them and feel their breath and their heartbeat and smell their smell which smells so good, that’s the moment when you realize how worth it long distance was, that’s the reason why.