If you are reading this, you have probably been in my situation, or maybe you're on your way into one, searching desperately on Google for some advice, some guidance to make it work. If you're the latter, welcome! I was exactly where you were about a month and a half ago.

Yes, I've read it all. The Odyssey articles, the WikiHow pages, and the endless list of blogs that belong to the success stories. It all seems so simple, as if miles and miles of seperation could somehow be managed within a short list of the same exact things. Communication, trust, loyalty, understanding, planning, blah, blah, etc,. It seems so much easier when you can squeeze it all into 10 easy steps. Don't get me wrong, these websites aren't wrong, but they tend to leave out the way long distance bends and shapes your relationship. The truth is that the time that you're apart from your person will be the most painful and confusing time of your life.

I'll give you some background. My boyfriend and I have been together for nearly a year, but we've been best friends since the eighth grade. We're 134 miles away from each other, or rather, a two hour car ride away from each other. It's a hard jump considering the car ride to each other used to be five minutes.

Some long distance relationship experts would scoff at this. There have been people who have been together longer and have simultaneously lived in two different countries. Instead of an hour time zone difference, they have seven hours between them. I commend those people, but if they can say it's easy, I'd have to call bullshit.

Going into it, you might feel pretty confident about long distance. You might say to yourself "It won't be too bad", "People go through this all of the time", and "We'll just visit each other all of the time". There's some truth in these things, and it's easier that way, I think, to cope those first few days when you have that kind of outlook. I certainly did.

I was going to miss him, I knew that much. I just didn't know to what extent. Originally I thought I would miss him in a lay-in-bed-and-listen-to-sad-music kind of way. In reality, I don't get to choose when I miss him. Most days I just kind of get swept away by life, but there are small moments where I kind of wish I could just turn and talk to him about, and sometimes I see things that he would like and I wish I could point it out to him. I also tend to miss the way things were before we were thrown into all of this. It was so much easier when you didn't have to plan on seeing each other a week or two in advance. Skype calls make this a little easier, but when he's sad or stressed or missing me too, I just kind of wish I could reach through my screen and hug him. I hope science makes that possible someday...or maybe not. That's a little weird.

I also didn't expect to feel so scared at first. This was most prominent the first few days he was gone, and trust me it does subside. I was always thinking about him. I always thought about what he was doing and who he was with. Trust me, I am not the psycho girlfriend type, so I never blew up his phone. It's just a weird feeling knowing that both of us are in two different places. There's always that nagging voice in the back of my head, though. It takes a lot of strength to ignore that voice, I think.

There are smaller things that become frustrating. I get jealous when I see other couples around campus. Like, more jealous than I would if I were single. It also feels like every love song ever is targeted at me. And sometimes, I just miss his touch. I miss being kissed. I miss holding hands with with him. I miss having someone right here who I can just talk to about anything. I miss having my best friend.

Too many times, people talk about long distance and kind of just throw in the towel. When they think about being apart, they are so quick to put an expiration date on their person. If you had asked me about long distance about five months ago, I would probably do the same, honestly. I was afraid we would get tired of each other and that we would just fizzle out. I was afraid of being cheated on. I was afraid of miscommunication. I was afraid of being sad or angry for no reason, just that we were in two different places.

But I'm not afraid anymore. I've learned to take everything day to day. The worst thing you can do in a long distance relationship, in my opinion, is look too far into the future. When you do that, you leave too much room for uncertainty. We don't know where life will take us in six months later, let alone four years.

The truth is, I don't know what is going to happen to us in a few months, and I don't really want to know. I like looking forward to weekends, solely because it might be a weekend I can finally be with him. All the crap you feel when you're apart- the longing and the sadness- it just melts away when you finally get to see each other. Those Skype calls are the highlights of my week because I can finally just talk and be myself.

I am writing this article for anyone in love with someone who is miles away. I hope it helps to read about someone who is currently in your situation, and I hope this was truthful enough and that you can relate. I can tell you that it's never easy, but it is survivable. That's the truth. Starting out, you might feel like you're drowning, but time heals you, and you finally get that breath of fresh air. It will be the most testing time of your life.

What those Google search results tell you are all true. You need those ten easy steps to make the relationship work, but you are the most important step. You have to be strong, and you have to be able to know what you can take emotionally, without breaking. If you ever take a step back and feel like you cannot handle the crap that piles on your relationship, or that your partner isn't putting in the same amount of effort as you are, fix it or get out of it. Do not destroy yourself over someone who can't even hold you at the end of the day. You only have yourself and that has to be enough when it comes to long distance.

It's incredibly cliche (then again, long distance relationships are incredibly cliche), but if you truly love the person you're with, and they love you just as much, you should always be on the same page, or find a way to the same page. It is a game of compromise.

So, good luck to you, reader. I hope these Google search results find you well.