carleymeiners

Long distance sucks.  It sucks a whole when your support system is over 8 hours away. There’s no luxury of visiting for a weekend because weekend visits are out of driving distance, and plane tickets are too expensive. It sucks when everyone else’s boyfriends get to come visit while you sit in your room eating ice cream and binge-watching Grey’s Anatomy. It just sucks a lot.

“The relentless climb, the pain and anguish of taking it to the next level, nobody takes pictures of that. Nobody wants to remember.” -Meredith Grey

I’ve had people tell me that I’m brave to be in this type of a long distance relationship. I’ve had people tell me that I come off as if my relationship is perfect. I’ve also had people tell me that I’ve only done distance for such a short amount of time so I just don’t understand distance.

Maybe I am brave, maybe my relationship does come off as perfect and sure I haven’t been doing distance, with him, for years but all of that put together doesn’t make any of it any easier.

Distance is no stranger to me. You see, I’ve spent the past four years away from my biggest and strongest support system: my family. I’ve missed birthdays, holidays, almost every single Mother’s Day, and my baby sister growing into an adult and rocking it at her cross country meets. I’ve somehow come accustomed to the distance between my family and me. It’s not easy, and it never gets easier. I cry every single time I leave (not kidding, every single time). But I cope. No one wants to talk about that, though.

I remember last semester when I thought everything was falling apart, an old friend messaged me on Facebook to say hi and mentioned that my life seemed “so cool right now.” Then a few weeks later I was told that I made it seem like my relationship was perfect, and that maybe he was jealous of that. I am always baffled by the thought that my life seems anywhere close to perfect, especially my dating life. But I guess I don’t talk about the hard stuff.

Although my relationship is wonderful, very wonderful to be exact, it is by no means perfect.

My boyfriend and I barely ever talk during the day. I get a “good morning” text at 6 a.m. before I’m awake and an “I love you” at lunch. On a good week we have time to talk for more than a few minutes around dinner time, but by the time we get to talk we’re both exhausted from our hectic day. On the weekends, when I’m not doing homework we have more time, but it’s also hard to talk and not miss each other. Sometimes we avoid long conversations as a way of coping with the distance.

I saw my boyfriend two weeks around the holidays, which is the longest period of time we’ve been together in 10 months. I struggle, a lot, with the distance and consistently get upset that we can’t see each other. I struggle immensely around other couples while he is away. I just don’t want to be around them.  And man have I become an expert at hiding my emotions to others when things are rough because no one, in my opinion, wants to hear about it.

I chose this, though. I know that. I chose to continue to be with a man I know I have a future with. I am very thankful for the time that we do spend together and for the knowledge that I know the distance isn’t forever.

I guess my point I’m trying to make is that it’s funny how social media, and just humans in general, are so quick to talk about the good, but also so quick at hiding the hard or difficult parts of life.

It’s so easy for people to say that our distance can’t be that hard because we maybe we make it look easy? Or that yeah, we’ve only been doing this for a short amount of time so how bad could it be?

Let be the (probably not) first to say distance is different for everyone but strangely the same. No amount of time about makes you more of an expert on the topic than someone else. Distance will challenge your relationship, and if it’s meant to be it will also strengthen it. My parents, who will celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary in June (!! shout out to that beautiful, wonderful couple), did distance for two years BEFORE THE INTERNET EXISTED. Their main form of communication was written letters while he lived overseas. They definitely did not have it easy.

It’s so easy to get lost in thinking that everyone else has it easy. I’ll be the first to tell you that my life is not perfect.No one like to talk about the hard stuff. From the outside it may look effortless, but from the inside it’s work. I mean nothing worth having is given for free.

“We just want to remember the view from the top; The breath taking moment from the edge of the world that’s what keeps us climbing. And it’s worth the pain that’s the crazy part; it’s worth anything.” -Meredith Grey

I wouldn’t change my relationship for the world. He is handsome, exciting, hard working and everything I could have dreamed for in a man (sorry not sorry if you think that’s cheesy). He listens to me and is patient. He randomly sends me flowers at work or orders dinner to be sent to my apartment. He never misses a good night text and never makes me feel unloved. So yeah, in hindsight it probably does seem perfect.

The distance is worth it, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy. But then again, I rarely talk (or post) about the bad.