For most of us, we have experienced long-distance friendships. Long-distance friendships happen when you graduate high school, go to different universities, and find new life paths different from the people you've known since kindergarten. You keep in touch and see each other frequently enough throughout the year, which is what makes the long-distance friendship last. Perhaps it is not as strong as it once was, but it's strong enough that both people involved know that the other person still cares. So when you're a college senior about to experience the same thing, you think you're prepared.

But you're not, because there is a big difference between maintaining high school friends and college friends.

When you're in high school, everyone you know is from the same hometown. So even though you go to different universities, or skipped school to travel the country, there is a structured schedule when everyone you know from high school will more than likely be back home. Spring break (if theirs lines up with yours), winter break, Thanksgiving break, and summer break. From this, it isn't difficult to find time throughout the year to catch up with the besties who have seen you through all of your awkward stages. You can meet in the summer for margs and catch up on the recent gossip, like who is pregnant and/or engaged. Over Thanksgiving, you can go Black Friday shopping with their family you haven't seen in a while. The month long winter break can be spent with a night in, laughing like you guys are 14 again and reminiscing on all the memories you have together.

Yet there is probably one thing that your college friends don't have in common with your high school friends: your hometown. Therefore, when all your friends begin to graduate and move away to an exciting new city to start their careers, it becomes clear that this is even more of a challenge than you ever expected. There is no longer any structure. They probably work during summer break and they spend holidays in their own hometown. It's not impossible to visit them, but more than likely, it will be expensive enough that it can't be frequent. The best you can hope for as a senior is to make a fun four-day weekend out of it when (if) you can afford it.

This sounds so incredibly negative and heartbreaking, but I have gained a new perspective on all of my friends becoming long-distance. These amazing people in my life are moving away as young professionals and not letting anything hold them back. How could I not be more proud of them?

Or even more inspired?

The transition from college to the professional world is much harder than the transition from high school to college. I am on my way to graduating, and the idea of moving somewhere where I don't know a soul is terrifying. At least in college, everyone in your dorm and classes were in the same boat of trying to make friends. But if there is anything that I have learned from the long-distance besties that I have made in college, it's that taking the risk is completely worth it.

And when it comes to these friends, you will work around all of the challenges and keep the people in your life who are meant to be there regardless of the miles between you.