Having your best friend move across the country to pursue their dreams is bittersweet. It's an intense mixture of sadness and pride. I didn't want my best friend and roommate to go to California, leaving me alone on our windy campus, but I was proud of her courage to do the one thing I wish I had done. I wish I had the gall to leave everyone I loved behind in another state to chase my dreams and have a fresh start. I wish I had enough hope in the future to find an apartment in a city I was unfamiliar with and to start my life over again. So here is a list of reasons why it kind of sucks to be in New York while my best friend is in California:
It's harder to coordinate times to talk to each other.
California is 3 hours behind New York. That means if I'm up at 8:00 in the morning and she's still asleep because it's 5:00 in the morning her time. Sometimes things happen in my day that I can only talk to her about and I have to wait hours for a reply because she's still sleeping.
The same thing happens when we're FaceTiming. I'm ready to head to bed around one in the morning and her night is just getting started. It's difficult trying to find times where it works for both of our schedules. There have been times where we've have had to plan days in advance to FaceTime one another because of the complete differences in our schedules.
It feels like a piece of me is missing
The reason her and I got along so well is because we were so similar. We liked the same music, books, TV shows, movies... if I was referring to something, she'd understand almost instantly. We can talk about anything. Sometimes I walk around campus and it feels weird because there isn't this human walking beside me talking about a concert we wanted to go to or a book we had to read.
We're into the same thing and now that person who just got what I was talking about is gone.
I have to wait to tell her everything
At the end of the day, I used to be able to come home, plop on my bed, and unload about my day. Now I have to wait until our coordinated times to tell her the latest gossip going on in New York. Sometimes what I have to say is so juicy (and so lengthy that it cannot be understood via text) that I need to tell her that moment, but I have to wait.
The plus side of this is that we have so much to talk about collectively on FaceTime that we can discuss the happenings of our prospective lives for hours. Sometimes we'll be on FaceTime until I can't even keep my eyes open any longer.
Plane tickets are expensive
A plane ticket to California from New York roundtrip requires two things: a hefty bank account and time. I've been trying to buy a ticket to see her for months, but the price of said ticket always alludes me. What college student has $600 to drop on a time for a plane ticket? Not I! I've been saving up to go see her, but plane ticket prices rise by the day. It's like a cat and mouse came and I have yet to master the art of strategically purchasing a plane ticket.
It feels like you've been apart your whole life
We left each other in May, but it feels like a lifetime! There's this sense of longing when your best friend moves across the country. You miss the human interaction, the instantaneous connection when something major happens.
Every now and then, something will happen that will remind you of them and then all the feels decide to sucker punch you in the face
Having your best friend move across the country is the most traumatic thing to ever happen especially when she was your roommate. We shared everything together and now the distance makes it more difficult to do that, but we shall prevail and hopefully a reunion is imminent.
