I am currently in a long distance relationship and I’m not going to sugarcoat it: it has been extremely rough. I live in NYC, and he lives in Hawaii. We are about 4,957 miles apart. Not only is the distance challenging, but we are in different time zones. He’s 6 hours behind me, making it difficult to talk to him very often. While I am in class for most of the day, he’s busy with things for school and his new job. And when I am still busy and he gets time to talk, he messages me but I am unable to answer right away. And when I do answer, he is busy again.
It’s really a struggle, but I digress. Since we can’t talk to each other as often as we used to, it makes it even better when I can finally Facetime him and tell him about my week and he can tell me about his. Talking to him always makes my days a little bit brighter and makes me feel better. Still, you’re probably wondering how and why I am dating someone that lives in Hawaii when I am here in NYC. And no, I am not from Hawaii if that is what some of you were thinking of. My dad is in the Air Force, so I move almost every four years of my life. I was born in Japan, then I moved to England, Oklahoma, Virginia and then moved to Germany. My parents still live in Germany, so I basically moved here from there.
My boyfriend and I met at our all American students high school on the military base. His dad is in the Army. We met in our advanced choir class fall of junior year and from there we became really close friends. It wasn’t until the beginning of senior year that we confessed our feelings for each other and he asked me to homecoming. From there, we began dating just a bit later. We had an amazing senior year together and the best things of the year were probably playing Sandy and Danny together in our high school production of Grease, Prom, and him coming to Berlin with me and my family. We graduated from high school together, and spent the whole summer together before he had to move away. It’s now October, and I haven’t seen him in person since July 30th. We are both military kids so we knew this would be difficult, but we knew we could do it because we just love each other this much. We also have had to deal with leaving people we have come to love throughout our whole lives.
What I have learned from being in this long distance relationship with the boy I love, is that if we can survive this, we can survive anything. I’ve held the quote “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” very dear to my heart during this time. It is extremely accurate because it has made me fall more in love with him and has reassured me that when I see him next, I will not take any of the time we get together for granted, especially because we will only get limited time together; hopefully every 4-5 months.
I am so excited, though,because he is visiting me here in November for Thanksgiving! He will be here for 11 days and he will meet my family in New Jersey when we go for Thanksgiving dinner. I can’t wait to see him because by that time, it will have been 4 months since I had last seen him. On Thanksgiving Day, we will be celebrating our 10 months together. I’m so happy we will be together again for an anniversary! Then in April I will be going to Hawaii for Spring Break to visit him and his family and of course, I can’t wait for that either. Long distance is rough, but if you know that the person you are with is the only one for you, then that makes it just a bit easier. The feeling is bittersweet, but just know it will all work out in the end if you really put effort into the relationship. It must grow and flourish even when you’re apart.