A lot of people on here ask me about maintaining a long distance relationship – well, maintaining a relationship period but I don’t feel equipped to really answer that truthfully. Long distance, however, I can speak for.
My relationship has always been long distance, or at least in a period of transition. When things first got started we knew we didn’t have much together – it was the summer before my first year at college and we both recognized that I would be moving away after three short, but incredible, months.
After that it’s been soaking up time when we have it. Granted, it’s not as simple anymore. Tour dates are balanced with mid-terms, balanced with family holidays and press runs, but its worth it. Which is my only key piece of advice that I have. If its worth it; the distance, the different time zones, only being able to communicate a few times a day or a few times a week, then it won’t feel like work. Being young and in a committed long distance relationship can be hard. Its kind of like you get the worst of both worlds at some times. Yes, you have a boyfriend but no, you never get to see him. Skype and FaceTime, I’m certain, were created for the long distance relationship.
Like anything else, you have to make it work for you. The relationship will change a bit, that’s true, but you can make it change for the better if you have faith in it. If both people really want to make it work, it’ll work. Which, I suppose, is another nugget of advice. If you are the main or only one pulling the weight of things and you don’t feel like the other person is equally committed then just save yourself the nights waiting up for a phone call that you know is never coming and have the guts to walk away from things.
It’s interesting, when you’re in a long distance relationship you really are able to watch the other person grow and change in ways you never would be able to other wise. Each time you come together it’s certainly sacred, and always only amazing, but there’s another level to it. Time apart accentuates changes. Like when you haven’t seen your friend who had been studying abroad in Botswana for six months and you meet for dinner and are flabbergasted with how much weight she gained. If you had been with her everyday you probably wouldn’t notice until someone else pointed it out. Anyways…it’s sort of like the same thing with a relationship. You’re away for a while, then you come together and have to re-learn each other. It can be very exciting.
It bothers me when people scoff and say, “You’ve changed.” You should be changing! We aren’t static beings. The world around us is complicated and the world inside of us even more so. Do not be put off if your bf/gf leaves and changes a bit. Hopefully, with your guidance and support, they will always be changing for the better.
Space also gives you the ability to grow in your own way. Like a turtle. Until this summer, when I went to pick up my brother from his house only to see him outside, ankle deep in a baby pool, playing with his two amphibian friends, I didn’t know that turtles will grow to their environment. If you a tiny turtle and put him in a tiny tank, he will stay tiny. But take that same turtle and but him in your bathtub and he’ll grow. I do not think you can use this method to create giant turtles, though I certainly thought about it. Anyways, YOU are the turtle and your relationship can sometimes be the tank. (Gosh, look at these metaphors!) Expand the space of your relationship, push back your boundaries, give each other some f*cking space for christ sake, and you will be the better person for it.
If you take time apart, live your separate lives, and still come back to each other at the end of the night then have no fear. You two might just make it!