Day and Night
As someone who is an over-thinker in almost every aspect of life, it’s crazy to look back and realize how little thought I gave this decision.
That being the decision to start my freshman year of college in a long-distance relationship with my high school boyfriend. I remember thinking about how much fun we had had that summer before school together. About that two-month-long winter break, we’d have (thank you, Covid) and how much I’d want to spend that time with him when I got home. I thought about how in love we were. I had no notion of what would come as I embarked on my college journey.
They say “absence makes the heart grow fonder” and my first semester was a true embodiment of this. I somehow fell more in love despite only seeing my long-distance boyfriend (LDB) over FaceTime. Life was abundant with new adventures. Making new friends, rushing a sorority, learning to live on my own in a whole new city, adjusting to college courses, the list goes on.
At one point during the semester, like every other college student in 2020, I was forced to quarantine. During these few weeks, my LDB kept me company over the phone for hours on end.
The two-month-long winter break had arrived and I finally got to spend every day with my boyfriend as I had been longing for all semester. From baking holiday cookies with one another to get to know each other’s families on a stronger level, I never would have expected what the second semester would bring.
The two semesters could easily be compared to day and night. I was no longer distracted by the novelties of freshman year. I came back as a well-adjusted, confident girl who was starting to notice her feelings shift. Rather than longing for my LDB as I had done the previous semester, I was hyper-focused on how much I missed him in a negative way. There was no more two-month-long winter break to look forward to. He was supposed to visit me but due to Covid (of course), that got canceled.
Sure, we had summer, but that was over four months away. I was beginning to think this whole long-distance thing wasn’t going to work for the upcoming school year. How would we be able to put effort into a relationship that we knew was going to end at some point? I felt a new kind of distance growing between us. One that wasn’t physical.
Our FaceTimes became less frequent. He suddenly became busier. I suddenly questioned a break. Here I was, getting dressed up three or four nights a week, watching as my friends got with guy after guy after guy. Not only was I missing my LDB, but I was missing out on part of the fun my friends were indulging in. I knew I wasn’t going to marry him. I felt like I was missing out on the “college experience.”
It’s crazy looking back and realizing how drastically different my first and second semesters were. You can talk to a million different people about their experiences with LDR’s during college and hear a million different opinions. What I once viewed as a source of comfort and desire during a period of change in my life turned into a weight on my shoulders.
College is a learning experience, both in and out of the classroom. If I had given more thought to going to college with my LDB, maybe I would have done things differently. But I wouldn’t have learned the lessons that this experience has taught me.
By Anonymous ‘22