1. Set up a call schedule.

When you first move to a new place, you will most likely be talking to your friends all the time. However, soon enough, life will kick in for both of you and the amount of time between you talking will grow longer and longer.

In order to combat this, I suggest creating a regular call schedule. Pick a day of the week and time when you can talk and stick to it.

Also, make sure your schedule is realistic. Whether it's once a week, every other week, once a month, etc., you need to find a pattern that works for you and won't impede your everyday life.

2. Check in with each other.

When I first moved to Florida, I was miserable. It took a really long time for me to find a friend group at my new school and before then, I was pretty much only relying on my Chicago friends for socializing with people my age.

However, I found that I was the one constantly messaging my friends and that my friends weren't messaging me first all that often.

It hurt because to them, just one part of their life was gone, whereas in my case, my whole world had changed.

One of the keys to maintaining a long-distance friendship is mutual checking in. Both friends should be making an effort to keep in contact with one another, whether that be once a week or once every few months.

It's also important to remember that even if your friend doesn't check in with you all the time, they still care about you. Maybe they're just not good at holding a conversation over text.

3. Let go of people who cause you pain.

To continue my previous statement, the friends that respond to your messages and make the effort to check in with you every once in a while (even if it's rare) are the friends you should keep around.

If you're the only one reaching out to a friend and they never keep the conversation going past "How are you?" and "Good," you might need to let go.

In the moment, it really hurts because you probably have a history with the person that you don't want to let go of. However, if you're putting in all the effort and they aren't even making the smallest effort to maintain the friendship, it's not worth straining yourself over. True friendships require work to be put in on both sides.

This was a really hard concept for me to grasp when I moved to Florida. I had tons of friends in Chicago from elementary school all the way to high school, but now, as a 20-year-old, I am still in contact with three of them semi-regularly and another two every once in a while.

This dramatic decrease in friends I'm still in contact with was mostly caused by the realization that the only people worth keeping in contact with are the ones who care for me as much as I care for them.

I stopped messaging anyone who never bothered to message me to alleviate some of the pain that I felt whenever they ignored a message.

It might hurt at the moment, but it does wonders for your overall peace of mind. Some people are best left in your memories.

4. Make peace with the idea of change.

If you hold onto your past without living the life that you're in now, you'll never be successful. Friends that live far apart will grow and change without the other friend seeing. It's just a fact of life.

However, the friends who acknowledge that they have changed and let the other into their new lives will form the strongest friendships.

Yes things will be different now that you're apart, but if you put the work in and embrace each other's growth, you will always be a part of each other's lives.