So… you have a long-distance best friend. While the term “long distance” can leave a bad taste in people’s mouths (after all, it’s no walk in the park), long distance friendships are important to have as a young person. They teach you perseverance, patience, and a lot about yourself. I wouldn’t be the person that I am today if my BFF weren’t in my life.
I met my best friend when I was 5 years old. My family had just moved into our new house in a fairly new neighborhood, and he was the only other kid my age. He had these huge ears that made him look like something out of a Disney movie, and I was so clumsy that I made drunk college girls look like professional walkers. We were inseparable until we were in middle school and as we grew out of our embarrassing shortcomings and we drifted apart. I started playing lacrosse and he started hanging out with all of his music friends. Our parents would joke that we fought just like siblings, but the truth is that we had found ourselves in the midst of a toxic relationship that just wasn’t the same as it used to be.
During High School we became close again after I joined the choir, and for about 2 years it was smooth-ish sailing. But our friendship became rocky again when I let one of his secrets slip to a mutual friend. He started becoming very exclusive with who he wanted to be seen with, and, sadly, I didn’t make the cut. We had both had developed fool-proof plans as to how we were going to ghost each other after graduation. It would be easier since we decided to go to a schools four hours away from one another. He was going to stop texting me, liking my Instagram pictures and tweets. My plan was to mute and unfollow him on everything, so that I didn’t even have to deal with the friendship that I had helped sabotage.
Even with the best of planning, something strange happened after graduation. We found ourselves missing the parts of our friendship that had been great, like late night conversations in his truck and school night movie nights that would turn into giggle parties, and all of the other endless reasons why growing up together had made us such good friends, leaving us with such wholesome memories that we couldn’t let go of.
Over the second semester of our Freshman year, we began texting and Facetiming just to stay updated on each other’s day to day lives. On really rough days, it’s nice to know that I have someone that listens to me wholeheartedly whenever I need them. When my Grandpa died last fall, he even drove an hour to support me at his funeral, and I hope he knows I’d do the same for him.
Despite the bumps in the road, having a long-distance friendship is one of the most rewarding relationships I can think of. If we get angry, we can take time apart without feeling the pressure to resolve issues prematurely. Seeing each other has become an event that we spend weeks planning, which makes it all the more exciting. He comes to my house during breaks from school and I swear I am just like a dog who hasn’t seen their human in couple hours, that’s exactly how exciting it is see him. While I know now that if we lived closer we’d be able to handle the friction we experienced in our younger years, I still wouldn’t change our situation. Now we can talk about all of our past craziness, how we’ve grown up, and laugh about our present mistakes without the judgment or fear of rejection that used to be ever present in our relationship.
My best friend and I have known each other for a long time, and our experience is something that every young person should get the opportunity to witness. We may have grown apart in the past but all that time gave us the opportunity to grow.