By Ericka Valladares When the opportunity of leaving your home country is given to you at such a young age it is total bliss. You are about to leave your parent’s home where their rules were THE rules, you’ll meet new people, travel to places you haven’t even dream of, surround yourself with a whole new culture. Sounds perfect, right? Starting from zero, leaving everything behind… But what if your favorite person on earth happens to be in the place you are about to leave? What if you are in love? What if that person is the one? All of a sudden it doesn’t sound so perfect anymore and doubts appear. But…it’s just a couple of thousand kilometers. We can work it out. We are the exception to the rule. Distance is not so bad. Absence makes the heart grow fonder… And that’s how long distance relationships start, well, at least the ones I’m referring to. Long distance relationships are actually very controversial, the majority is skeptical of them, suggesting they are not real relationships and condemn them to failure, not believing they actually can work out. But the truth is that long distance relationships are the same as “common” relationships. They also need loyalty, trust, love, communication (LOTS of communication), patience, and commitment. Aren’t “normal” relationships the same? So back to our story… You are already away, miles and miles from the person who is closest to you. Your confidant, best friend, lover, soulmate, the one. Skype starts being your favorite invention, and you find yourself browsing through millions of “Why Long Distance Relationships DO Work” articles on the internet, “Hey There Delilah” is in replay mode on your iPod, you become an expert in checking air tickets for the cheapest way home, and you even become friends with the staff of the post office since you are the only one who still uses snail mail. You mess up your sleep schedule, you get called “boring” at least once a week because you prefer to stay home and skype than go to a bar or a club, you get really bad days in which you pathetically hug your pillow and cry like a baby. Even though your body is here, your mind is miles away, but everything is worth it. When you see that face on the screen and you talk about your day as if just for a moment the kilometers didn’t exist, then everything else disappears as well. Days go by, you just miss that person more and more. You get jealous, you fight about small things, your class schedule interferes with your skype time, your friends are constantly nagging about how you should enjoy yourself more, you are mad with your special other for not being there, and you get mad with yourself for being mad at them for such a selfish reason. It’s going down, you can feel it. But then, you look at the day marked in your calendar, the day when you’ll get into that airplane and be with that amazing human being again. The date is close. It feels real. Everything seems better. Everything seems possible. You get there. Fireworks, a ray of light shining upon them, and you are the happiest person on the face of the earth. You forget all the bad times because in the end you know how it was all worth it. OR… All of a sudden one of you says “we have to talk” and both of you know what’s coming. You don’t want to, but you have to…it’s too much. Life is passing by and waiting is becoming more and more of a torture for both of you. You have the talk, hang up on skype, and…it’s over. It’s easier than a normal breakup, supposedly. You don’t run the risk of running into them somewhere, your friends don’t have anything to tell you about them, and if you don’t check social media you might not know anything about them for a long time. You start being more here than over there, start focusing on yourself again. You might as well try a new sport or hobby. Oh, that date you turned down some weeks ago called back and you might take it, because now you can actually have dates! Sleeping without setting weird alarms to have a chance to talk in the middle of the night. And all of a sudden it’s like a fresh start and your surroundings get more interesting. You wonder how many opportunities you lost, maybe regret it or maybe not, but after some time (a day, a month, a year), you move on…and it feels great. This is the thing about long distance relationships, you are giving your present away for a future that’s not precisely certain. At least that’s how I feel about them, the eternal wait, the feeling of not completely wanting to be where you are even though where you are is just perfect, not giving yourself the opportunity to meet new interesting people, depending on a whole different time zone and missing something, missing a part of yourself, being incomplete for long periods of time. Long distance relationships are crazy. Totally. They are full of risks and sacrifices, you must be full of patience, love, and strength. Of course, lots of them don’t work out, but since the same applies to “normal” relationships, why condemn them? Would I try it again? Probably. If anyone actually made me consider riding such a dangerous-bipolar-exasperating-rollercoaster again, that human being must be great and totally worth it. Plus, at the end, as in all other relationships, if it works out it will be the best leap you ever take, and that small hope is what keeps us going.
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May 2024
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