There is a surplus of sappy love quotes plastered throughout the internet that speak of long-distance relationships, but for the people working through these difficult and arduous unions, those words could not feel further from the truth. I have trudged through a long-distance relationship throughout the entirety of my college years, and I know that the airy language associated with them is something that simply does not touch the core of what it is to be in Love when distance is a factor.
In truth, when distance becomes an active part of a relationship, the word Love becomes something entirely different. Maintaining a relationship is never easy, but when its fundamentals are challenged even further, it could seem like an impossibility. Things like communication can no longer be taken for granted, and the true limits of trust are pushed to their furthermost boundaries.
I do not have any magical formula for making long-distance relationships easier, and I do not have a method to avoiding the struggles that come with them, but I do know that without this communication and trust, a relationship just cannot exist. The importance of talking is something so easily glazed over, but when physical communication is non-existent, it is a life-line of a relationship.
I also cannot say that trust is something easy to give to someone, even if that someone is a person you love. For myself, trust was something built slowly, steadily, and ceaselessly over time, and even so, it is something that still challenges me relentlessly.
Even the words of this article seem to fall short of what it is to get through a long-distance relationship. The intangible enemy of distance is something I do not possess the words to describe, and any thing I might attempt to write would only serve as a poor attempt at unveiling what it is like to push forward with someone so far away.
I once told my girlfriend that we are sitting together in a foxhole with one another, far away from any type of hope or salvation. Over the hills on all sides of us are soldiers coming to end the battle of our relationship; the relentless tides of distance, time, and heartache that refuse to rest in a relationship like this. While all of these hardships approach us, all we can do is lean on one another, back to back, and continue to fight on. If one of us is not whole-heartedly engaged in that fight, we will both fall, and if one of us doubts the trust of the other, we will both fall. I told her that I cannot guarantee that we will make it through, but I can guarantee that effort is the only way to get through that war together. And perhaps, maybe, sometime in the future, we will both be able to walk out of that foxhole together, relieved of the ruthless waves of a long-distance relationship. And perhaps that’s what a long-distance relationship really is- a war that can only be won by leaning on one another and trusting, trusting that eventually the armies that wage against your relationship will one day cease, and that both of you will be able to walk out of that foxhole together.