Nowadays, with the ever-evolving power of the internet, almost everyone has at least one long-distance friendship, acquaintance or significant other. People in your social circle may have relationships that cross state lines, country borders or even entire oceans! I am, of course, no exception. I live in New York, and one of my closet and oldest friendships is with a girl I met at a "Harry Potter" convention many years ago and with whom I've been attending these conventions every year since.

Dana and I first met at LeakyCon a few years back when she happened to be volunteering at the convention with my mom, who introduced us. We wound up accidentally attending a Disney Singalong together and had a great time making fools of ourselves alongside the minor celebrities who also attend these conventions. The following year, we met up again and she (unexpectedly to me) saved me a front row seat for yet another Disney Singalong. An iconic friendship had begun to bloom (which was captured perfectly by the lovely cover photo of this article).

Last year's convention rolls around and this time, we take LeakyCon by storm. We've got a squad of friends affectionately dubbed "Bitchcon." We've staying up all night in our hotel rooms with boxes upon boxes of Dominoes pizza and bottles of wine. And we completely dominate yet another Disney Singalong from the front row as per usual. At this point, I consider Dana and the rest of Bitchcon to be some of my coolest and closest friends. Over a year has passed since we've all been together, but our group chat is still just as flourishing as it was back then.

Dana also happens to live on Guam. Dana is an avid traveler who spends almost every one of her summers seeing the world and visiting her far away friends. I'm constantly inspired by her dedication to her passion of traveling and her incredible money-saving skills. This summer, when she needed a place to stay in New York for almost a month, I willfully offered up my already-cramped dorm space to house her. And what an adventure it was. I don't have the space or the time to detail our whole itinerary, but I can share a few more thoughts on the experience of hanging out with a long distance friend.

In the days leading up to housing Dana, I can admit I was not at all excited. My month was looking like it was going to be way too busy to be responsible for another human being, let alone have any time to hang out with her. But immediately upon her arrival and our first night of staying up past midnight together laughing and snacking, I'd already started wishing we had more time.

When Dana travels, she isn't a tourist. She didn't want to see the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty or go anywhere near Times Square. (Mostly because she's been to New York more than enough times already and has moved on from those entry-level distractions.) She just wanted to spend time with me and let me take her to some of my favorite local spots. And when I was too busy with school or work to walk her around, she was more than capable of keeping herself entertained.

Now that Dana is already on another flight to yet another travel destination, I'm already wishing she were back in New York and we were spending more time just walking around together. Looking back, we didn't do anything particularly thrilling. I took her to Washington Square Park and Pomme Frites one night, and that was probably our most exciting adventure. But every other night was spent simply catching up in the dorms, laughing about our days and about nothing at all. And now that she's gone, I wish we'd had one more night just to laugh about face masks and vines.

But I'm not too sad because I know that Bitchcon will always be there for each other whenever we miss it too much. And now that I've gotten the chance to spend a little more time with one of its members, I think I appreciate the group chat just a bit more for keeping us all in touch after all these years.

And one more thing -- Happy Birthday, Dana. Thanks for spending some of it in my city.