By: Jordan Harper
At the end of high school I found myself in a lot of long distance friendships, and now a year after college is over, I’ve often wondered why some of those friendships survived the years of distance and why some didn’t.
When I thought over the years I realized one of the friendships specifically thrived with the distance and continues thriving with distance, and that’s because we have intentionally fed the relationship every day. In the beginning we wrote to each other often, because who doesn’t love getting mail, just for that person to have something to look forward to in the mail.
After awhile we just began to send things to each other when we would come across things that we knew the other would love.
Snapchat has also been key in our friendship over the years. It’s the easiest and fastest way to keep someone who is far away close at home. 10 seconds, who doesn’t have 10 seconds to just send a video to a person, whether you’re having a dance party alone in your apartment and wanna share the fun, to if you’re cooking dinner and you want to show the outcome to the other person, or you just wanted to say a quick hello and have a good day. There’s so much that 10 seconds can be used for that builds and strengthens that friendship. Just to know that just because they’re far away doesn’t mean you don’t want them involved in your day to day.
Keeping in touch is key in any friendship but especially in a long distance one. Just sending a text every once in awhile letting that person know you’re thinking of them can do worlds of wonderful for each other. Everyone wants to know someone cares for them, and sometimes you might just get them on a day that they really need to hear it.
I can never truly fault social media being in this world (yes it can be used for horrible things) but in the hands of good people it can be used for so much happiness. We have so many options at our finger tips nowadays and we should use them to help all the relationships in our lives grow and flourish!
