It’s about that time when denial of the semester's end starts to creep in. You know that those daunting months back home are right within arms reach and you start to remember that you won’t have your sister to tell you if that outfit looks good on you, or your brother to be your wing man in your hour of need. You’ll be faced with the greatest task of being back home: keeping in touch with your friends from school.

Being from out of state, I struggle with keeping in contact with my friends from high school. Aside from the occasional snapchat or text, I pretty much go M.I.A. from August to December and January to May. I’m sure I can’t be the only person to have this struggle, so I’ve come up with a foolproof guide to maintaining relationships over the summer. 

     1. Snapchat the minor things. Your toes in the sand as you become a bronze goddess on the beach? Snapchat it. Miserable at your full time desk job? Snapchat it. Anything you couldn’t maintain a conversation about doesn’t require any more than six seconds of a picture with the possible filter. Snapchat is the perfect app and method of communication for your best of friends as well as your acquaintances and everyone in between. Please, just don’t set an eighty-four snapchat story. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

2. Text the sporadic, funny, nostalgic or updates. Short or long, texting is often the most convenient form of communication when you’re away from your friends. It conveys the point that you do want to communicate with someone, unlike Snapchat, when you could be sending the same thing to 20 people at once. Texting gets added charm with the use of emojis or at 2:00 a.m. on a Friday night. Text away.

3. Call if you are absolutely happy or distraught. Occasions such as entering into a new relationship, winning the lottery or having some sort of freak accident are all perfectly acceptable reasons for a phone call to someone of importance. There’s nothing better than hearing someone’s voice and being able to have an immediate conversation. If you say you, “don’t like talking on the phone,” you can hold out on this one, but realize you’re going to miss out on more of a connection if you just text.

4. Last but not least: visit. Does your friend live in California or anywhere warm and not in the Midwest? Go visit. Does your friend live in the city when you’re a country bumpkin? Go be adventurous for a weekend. Explore with your BFF—you’ll make memories and get amped for the fall when you’re reunited for good.

What it really boils down to is that it doesn’t matter how you do it, just you do it. It’ll keep you sane when your family or work is driving you crazy and it’ll save you a few days of storytelling when you move back in in August. The amazing relationships you make at school deserve to be maintained over the summer; a picture, text, or call a day will keep your friends around to stay.