Your best friend is your significant other, so naturally, if he or she moves away that would be considered a long distance relationship. So here I am, sitting alone and bored in my dorm and honestly, feeling a little down, missing my best friends, missing my significant others.
In sixth grade, I met two girls. At the time, they both seemed like just ordinary classmates. Honestly, we didn’t even get along extremely well. It was the same old middle school drama, thinking to yourself, “What is she wearing?” or “Can she stop talking about herself for two minutes?” But, who knew those two girls would be my significant others today? We went through middle school—the terrible phase of covering up acne with makeup that didn’t match our skin and layering clothes with the inner cami peeking out as style. We went through it all. And naturally, as years progressed, we got closer and closer. We spent embarrassing Halloweens together, our excitement for the eighth-grade dance and our first crushes that we thought we’d end up dating (but they didn’t even look at us). We laughed and cried about everything together. It was just as cliché as any best friendship would be described.
High school came and we began maturing together. Finally finding a style of clothing that we don’t look back on and cringe about, getting through our classes we considered hard back then, and of course, actually talking to boys and continuing to laugh and shed tears that maybe mattered more than our sixth-grade loves. It was the same as middle school, just at a different level. Each day, we had the same six periods of class and had the same lunch some semesters. It was so normal at the time, but so priceless now that I reflect back on it. We began facing real life problems and went to each other for help. We knew that from here on out, the obstacles we would face would only be more and more difficult. But we had each other, and of course, we still have each other.
So high school was coming to an end, and college applications began. Filling them out and submitting them were tedious but low key exciting as we just thought to ourselves: this is it. Finally, freedom from our parents and high school. Little did I know, acceptances would be more difficult than I ever imagined. One of the two girls we knew would be going to a different college than us, probably an hour away or so at Georgia Tech. Our predictions were so different from reality. The three of us, I guess, were destined to end up at different universities. The predicted future Yellow Jacket ended up receiving a full ride to the University of Miami—about a 12-hour drive. That was so painful to even think about back then. But I thought it could be worse. The third girl in our little group ended up committing to Florida State University, plot twist; her first year was spent abroad in Valencia, Spain. This, also, was beyond unimaginable at the time. Selfish thoughts of course, but what was I going to do without my two rocks? Whose house was I supposed to go over to during times like this when I sit in my room lonely and bored? It was a shock, indeed, and I was upset. However, now when I look back, I am so beyond proud of both of them for being where they are today.
Dealing with this split was difficult to adjust to, and frankly, we still have some adjusting to do. At times, I think about what they both are doing at the moment, one probably asleep due to time zone differences. Then I smile to myself and realize that whatever they are experiencing in this exact moment might be one of the crazy stories they share with me when we all meet up again and talk.
My friend from U-Miami came down to visit during her fall break last week. Going from spending every day at her place over the summer, and actually during the school year too, to seeing her after about two months, made me a little nervous. She convinced her parents to let her stay at GSU with me for two nights and I can easily say those two nights might have been the happiest I have been this school year. It was so normal, almost as if she did go to Georgia Tech and had randomly decided to crash at my place. We ended up not even going out one of the nights, but instead sat in a room and just talked and even napped during the day. There were no formalities like I had feared and the atmosphere was the same one that existed when we both would sit on my couch back home and have conversations about things irrelevant enough for me to not even mention in this article. I felt like I was back home when she came to visit, and knowing that it was possible to do that again, feel that way again, was more than satisfying. We even Facetimed our friend in Spain as she, too, was on her fall break and spending it on an adventurous trip to France.
At first I thought I was being overly dramatic. And that I shouldn’t write about this. However, this split that inevitably happens, whether it's different colleges or different jobs, is so common and so hard at times. Yet, it's also possible to get through if each individual does his or her part When one of us does a bad job of keeping in touch, that’s when you know it’s your responsibility to help keep it going. Everything happens for a reason, and maybe this split going into college happened to make us stronger. I mean, isn't it just a new stage in an old friendship?
