When it was time for me to head four hours north for college, some of my friends thought I’d break up with my boyfriend. After all, he goes to school back home. Why would I willingly commit myself to a long distance relationship when we had only been dating for four months? I’d had a crush on him since my sophomore year of high school, and I wasn’t going to let that go. I wasn’t afraid to be so far away; in the grand scheme of things, is four hours really that bad? My brother’s girlfriend goes to school across the country at Washington State while he finishes his senior year at home in Wisconsin. Is a long distance relationship, or LDR, ideal for anyone? Not really, but I’ve come to love certain aspects of it, and I’m okay with dealing with distance for the next four years (granted everything works out). I’ve always been an independent person, and had been looking forward to the freedom that college would provide for a long time. Having a boyfriend that isn’t available 24/7 gives me that freedom, but I know that I’ll have someone to talk to at the end of the day. I don’t have to coordinate what I’m doing to fit our joint schedule, and we both get more homework done because we’re not hanging out all the time. And it keeps things interesting; we have a lot more to talk about because we’re doing different things every day.
Not seeing him every day makes it even more special when we do get to see each other. We’re aiming for being together every other weekend, whether he comes up to visit or I go back home. Two weeks is a length of time that works for us, it’s long enough to make the time we get to spend together that much better, but not so long that we miss each other too much and conveniently forget about our schoolwork and other obligations for a few days.
I’m also able to focus on my friendships with other girls. Not having my boyfriend on campus gives me a lot of time to spend with my squad, whether it’s taking yoga classes twice a week, eating pizza and watching High School Musical, or taking late night trips to Walmart for more popcorn. The relationships that I’m building with my friends are that much stronger because I have the time to devote to them.
At the end of the day, my boyfriend and I trust each other completely and know that this is only temporary. Until I graduate, we’ll always have summers to spend doing nothing together.