by Catherine Marcotte
As I move through the 4th year of my undergrad, I am almost 4 years into a (mostly) long-
distance relationship. While it can be frustrating, heart-wrenching, and admittedly, lonely, I’ve
been trying to be more attentive to what long-distance love has brought me over the years.
When I think about long-distance, I don’t only think about my partner. I also think about my
sister, my closest friends, and all the loved ones I’ve been so far away from. The decision to
move away for school has often been a painful and complicated one. At the same time, it has
changed and strengthened my relationships with myself and my loved ones. I have found that
distance doesn’t tend to make us love people any less. Instead, it propels us to love them
differently, maybe even more fiercely.
It has been my experience that when separated by time and distance, people look for new ways to
love one another. In one of the purest moments of long-distance love I have yet to receive, one of
my closest and dearest friends sent me flowers last year. My grandmother had just passed, but I
was deeply settled into the semester and away from my family. Amidst a heaviness and
loneliness that I just couldn’t shake, those flowers were a reminder of just how much love I still
had, even if it felt far away. While this might seem like a simple gesture, I’m not sure I had ever
felt as close to her or as loved by her as I did at that moment. I think that for both of us, flowers
felt like the closest thing to a hug that could be mailed to someone. The way her friendship could
manifest itself in a tangible way like that, across physical separation, was everything. All of this
is not to say that flowers, mail, or things, are magical balms that replace face-to-interactions and
relationships. Instead, it’s an insistence that the thoughtfulness of identifying a new avenue to
show love is incredibly powerful. Sometimes, it can even transcend distance.
I should add that this story is a very small look into a very long and attentive friendship. Though
it might have more to do with time, age, or even luck, I feel that my friendships – this one in
particular – have only become more precious and more valued in the face of distance.
These past 4 years have also made me realize how much distance heightens our appreciation;
both for the people we are separated from and the time that we have with them. I have found that
when my partner and I are living apart during the school year, we are much more thoughtful
about our time together. Most recently, my partner celebrated his 22nd birthday and I was
fortunate enough to be able to go home and be with him. While I made a cake, spent hours
cooking an elaborate birthday dinner, and engaged in all the birthday classics, I realized that
what was most important to that weekend was not what I did, but simply that I was there.
While my partner certainly appreciated these gestures, (I mean, who doesn’t want a homemade
birthday cake?) what was most meaningful to him was the simple fact that we were spending this
time together. As the more calm and more reasonable counterpart to my overplanning, over-
achieving self, my partner reminded me that what would always be most important was the
simple fact of our time together. Maybe my partner didn’t need the experience of a long-distance
relationship to recognize this, but for me, it’s one of the biggest lessons that distance has put into
focus. Being apart so much and so often isn’t always easy, but I’ve come to learn (and relearn,
thanks to my partner) that it can make us more thoughtful about the value of quality time with
the people that we love.
Wonderfully, difficultly, we become so bound up in our partners and relationships. While that connection can be incredibly grounding and gratifying, it can also be limiting. To me, one of the
biggest lessons of long-distance is not one you need geographic separation to learn or practice. It
is, simply and complicatedly, about cultivating the balance between loving your partner and
loving yourself and your life beyond the frame of a relationship.
In a lot of ways, I feel that our experience in long-distance love has foregrounded the stability of
my partner and I’s relationship. Despite being together for such formative years of our lives, we
have both had a great deal of time and space to explore our interests, think about our goals, and
figure out what we want out of our lives. Though I’d like to think otherwise, I’m not sure I
would have taken as much time to get to know myself these past few years if I’d had the option
to be glued to my partner all the time. Long-distance has helped me learn how to comfortably be
apart from my partner while still being with him. For me, there’s a lot of confidence and personal
growth that comes with knowing that you don’t have to be with your partner (or friend or loved
one) all the time to nourish a meaningful connection. Instead, you can take the time, space, and
even geographic distance you need to learn, explore, and get to know yourself. I firmly believe
that you can still love the people that you love, even if you choose to be far away for a while.
So, as I plan for yet another year of studies away from home, I am still learning to love long-
distance. But I am also learning just how much love long-distance has already given me.