When someone says long distance, we immediately assume it is in a romantic setting. For me, long distance relationships are something I deal with daily, and no, I don’t have multiple boyfriends. We all have those long distance relationships with our friends and family.

As I start my senior year, I have realized that keeping in touch with my high school friends has become one of the hardest things ever. It is not that I see it as a burden, it is just hard when you have such different lives it becomes hard to image what they are like. For me personally, having grown up in Ecuador and going to school in the U.S., I can sadly admit I have grown apart from my friends back home. I try to text them, but it seems that life itself is so overwhelming that I sometimes tend to forget. Conversations are ongoing, but we reply to each other every other day, sometimes once a week. I know this doesn’t mean they care less about me or they think I’m pushing them away, but it is sad to realize that you will keep growing apart. It doesn’t mean I forget about them either, it just seems hard to keep a conversation going when we can’t always vent to them through text or tell them stories that would be longer than an honors thesis if typed.

In the past three years since I started school, I have only gone home five times, which is one of the reasons I am terrible at this long distance thing. Seeing my friends at home during those times is amazing and we always have a great time, and in a way it is like time stops and we are back to the good old times. But as soon as I fly back to start a new semester, a different side of my life does take my priority and most of my energy. Our lives are so different even at a cultural extent, that it is hard for them to understand where I come from and it is hard for me to fully understand their situations as well. But like I said, going home has an amazing feeling because even though we might grow apart during the school year, we definitely grow back together during those few weeks a year I get to see them.

So I want to say I am sorry for sucking at long distance. I know saying I am too busy is not an excuse, but it is so easy to get caught up in the current situations you are physically present in, that trying to balance two different sides of your life becomes complicated. I understand each of us should enjoy the moments we are in, but never forget about those who have had a huge impact in our lives and have influenced who we are. It is hard to go from seeing my friends everyday for 14 years, to only seeing them twice a year.

I am sorry we don’t talk as consistently as we did before, but know that I still care about you. I promise I will try even harder to at least be a bit more consistent. Simply because we are in different countries, it doesn’t mean I care any less about you, I simply suck at long distance. Maybe it is because I miss being able to tell have face-to-face conversations and make weird sound effects while telling a story, or making strange food concoctions such as mixing popcorn, sausage and mustard. Nothing compares to being physically with a person, but when you can’t, you have to make the most out of it and make the effort to make it work.