It’s absolutely no lie when your mom, dad, brother, sister, grandma, cousin and everyone in between, tell you that going to college with a boyfriend isn’t easy. At least it wasn’t when all of these people told me a few months ago. The past couple months have not been the easiest, considering two people’s lives are being affected, rather than just one. Many things changed, especially when I was least expecting it, and if you think a few days would fix that, you’re anything but correct. I thought moving to college, while still dating a boy in high school, would work itself out, cause I love him, right? I wish it were that easy…
The Back Story
Honestly, this was not supposed to happen, not at all. I met him when I was a slight mess, I had just ended an old relationship and I just needed a date to my junior prom. My hometown of Carlisle, Iowa is small enough that everyone knows everyone, and naturally he was just the little brother of a mutual friend for all of these years. One night I ended up at a friend’s house, where he also happened to be. This night was just the start of many more late night adventures with the three of us.
Just coming out of a relationship, I knew I was going to need a prom date within the next few months. He was a sophomore at the time, so I knew he wouldn’t have plans that night. So, we ended up going to prom together in 2016 and it got much more interesting after that. He was younger, but full of life and refreshing, I couldn’t just be friends with this boy. Of course, this turned into spending a lot of nights on his couch watching movies and mid afternoon drives to McDonald’s for sweet tea. Somewhere along the line I met his family, which came with many (and I mean many) ridiculous inside jokes.
Our relationship turned into something that I never would have expected it to be, and I would have been lying if I had said that I didn’t love him. After my high school graduation, it became a little rocky, due to the fact that I was leaving at the end of the summer. This took a toll, resulting to the end of our relationship. He became a part of my life and that still hasn’t changed. It has just become more complicated since I moved to Iowa City. When I left my tiny town a month ago we said we’d be okay, but we both ended up being wrong.
Expectations vs. Reality
I moved to Iowa City after spending a year and four months enjoying life with this person. When I left, I expected this whole long distance relationship thing to be difficult, but I imagined we’d find a way to make it work. I imagined enjoying the college experience, and still having someone to fall back on during rough moments. For the first couple weeks of school, days were filled with continuous Snapchats and texts, that were followed with FaceTime calls at night. While our relationship was going great at the time, it wasn’t the same anymore and that realization hit hard. Texts became shorter, Snapchats less frequent and the FaceTimes were useless. Many things changed in just a few weeks, and we soon came to an end. After this, our relationship status was slightly on edge, and neither of us knew exactly what to call it. We sat in between a friendship and a relationship for quite a while before we finally called it off.
What I Learned
Our lives were going to grow apart, whether we meant for it to happen or not. There’s nothing that could have stopped this from happening, that’s how life works. With going to college, there’s a lot of personal growth, and that is meant to happen. We’re also supposed to be young and having fun, rather than worrying about someone who lives two hours away. There’s a lot of worrying, and trust issues play a large role in relationships themselves, but when you’re split up, the pressure becomes even more intense. This was also inevitable, but being so young with so many new opportunities, I shouldn’t be spending nights laying around worrying about what this person is doing, instead, I should be doing all the fun things that college has to offer.
Along with this, there’s the part when things go wrong, there has to be better communication. Bad communication is normal when you can’t address the problem face to face, so working on talking is a huge aspect of being away from someone.
Finally, while it took me a while to completely understand this next one, the fact that we both have our own lives to live is a major factor. We both have different things we need to be doing and trying to make someone a part of your life, when they have their own, is not a viable option.
Present Time
They were right when they said that going to college with a boy back home was going to be tough, but a lot of good has come out of it. Being so far away from someone so special, I’ve realized that connections can fade, but love is pretty consistent. While we aren’t together anymore, I know that we both have a special place in each other’s lives and something like this couldn’t change that. The Snapchats are still strong (can’t lose that streak), the texts are occasional and the FaceTimes are pretty rare but the friendship is still well alive. I see him when I go home every once in a while and we seem to have it down to a science now: not being together but still seeing each other.
There’s not a thing that could completely tear myself away from him, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I want to be with him. A long list of things between us have changed, but we’ve been taking it one step at a time to figure things out. We may not be physically together or emotionally together, but this friendship means more than I could ever put into words and I’m beyond thankful for that. One of these days, we’ll have it all figured out and I don’t imagine ever living my life without him being in it, and for that I’m eternally grateful.