AN ODE TO LONG-DISTANCE FRIENDSHIPS

One of my biggest fears in life is drifting from the people I care most about. I hate looking somebody in the eye and saying goodbye as if that will somehow make the circumstances bearable. I hate how helpless they make you feel. I hate how you don’t know how long they will last. 

The irony of walking into a room of new people is that we are never preemptively scared of the goodbyes to come; we are only consumed by goodbyes of the past. And I don’t think this is a bad thing. The potential for a person to leave cannot be the reason you don’t meet them, or else we would miss out on so many memories and experiences. At least I would have.

I would have missed out not just on the inside jokes and bizarre stories that make me laugh so hard I cry, but also on experiences with people who genuinely care about me, and I about them. Whether it is navigating the intricacies of relationships together or commiserating over shared doubts and insecurities; I am infinitely grateful to have met my friends. To know that I have people I can call at any time (well maybe not any time because the Canada-Australia time difference is not insignificant), who will be there for me, is so special. Although I will forever be grateful for the times my friends provided a much needed hug or a text asking how I was doing, it wasn’t just in times of emotional strife that I appreciated their presence. It was having somebody to go to that I felt like I had known forever. Where I left hour-long conversations, yet my first thought was when we could do it all again. I would endure a goodbye a thousand times over to have these memories.

For fear of sounding like a middle-aged person talking excitedly about the powers of the internet, I will not drone on about social media’s capability to sustain connection. However, I will say that the possibility to remain in frequent contact with those who live thousands of kilometres away has become fairly evident. Granted, as is the case with any long-distance relationship, it may require more planning to schedule times to talk than if the person were your neighbour. But I have slowly realized that if these friends want to be in my life, and I want to be in theirs, the goodbye does not have to last indefinitely. Acknowledging this made everything seem less “over” as I tearfully thumbed through photos of some of my favourite memories.

Our friendship is in the unending supply of metro tickets I find when I reach into my pocket. Our friendship is in the film photos of truffula trees and karaoke nights that I have on my wall. It’s in the WhatsApp chats, previously used to coordinate Crous lunch plans, now relegated to life updates from around the world. It’s (unfortunately) in the unlockable padlock and absurdly early mornings. It’s in the mould poisoning and rhymes about Miami spoken by Anna Delvey on her transatlantic cruise. It’s in the owl eye mask, disguising the only person I will ever do affirmations with. It’s in the principles of International Law that can only be (I use this term loosely) understood through a six-hour long gossip session. Our friendship is in a larger-than-normal cookie and Cam’s mystery cocktail. It’s in the heart of a mail delivery bird and dusting Riccola boxes off the table to make room for green pancakes. It’s in the French forest hikes some of us had the pleasure of attempting. Our friendship is in the stray cat, coaxed into a student residence, c’est à vous? It’s in the pocket of a worn leather jacket, filled with flip-flops and lukewarm, still cider. Our friendship is in the final hug in the Éstudines lobby and TGV INOUI No. 5486, taking me so far it counts as a long distance call.

But I’m never really saying goodbye. When I tearfully said it in the foyer, I was lying; I refuse to ever truly say goodbye. The cliché is that you become who you surround yourself with and I am fortunate enough to know that that is undeniably true, and I am infinitely happier because of it. So instead I will say this: thank you for being some of the most incredible friends. I love you all more than you will ever know. I can’t wait for the day when I can hug you again, but until then, I can’t wait to hear about every insignificant detail about your lives over FaceTime calls.