the overwhelmingly loving feeling i get after hanging up the phone with my friends is single handedly the most gentle reminder of the life we built with each other. i love knowing that while i may not have them with me in the physical; i can depend on them just as much now as i could back then. distance is just physical space, it doesn’t excuse for poor communication.
i think 18 year old me would be in utter shock of how easy long distance relationships can be, both platonic & romantic; something she never successfully experienced and wouldn’t come to learn until two and a half years later. there’s an element of maturity that comes with realizing that there are friends you can talk to a few times a year & still feel connected to & there are friends that need more communication; value what your friends need for communication the same way you value romantic communication.
since leaving florida, i look for my friends from there in the people i met here in new york. i quickly came to realize, that i fell in love with the friendships i made in florida because i had never met anyone like them before-& i will never find anyone like them in the future. so once i realized that, i picked up the phone & called my friends.
it is too easy to live your life from a distance & still feel connected to people. my friends know that if they are missing me, i am missing them that much more. there is so much beauty in finding the people that bring out the softness in you, not the survival. & while on many days, it may seem to those around me in new york that i overly miss the friends i had in florida, & how overdramatic it is, i remember how lucky i have been to have experienced all the little memories with those friends that made leaving that much harder.
i love knowing that there are people that see me the way i wish i saw myself. that for every thought of adoration for home i have is tied to someone there who equally wishes i was home with them instead of being over a thousand miles away. there are people who think “i wish steff was here”; wonder “why did steff have to leave?”, & “couldn’t she have just stayed?”; people who ask me “can’t you just come back home?”; & people who speak of my name with kindness in conversation. these are the people who i allow their voice to fill my heart from a phone call-the phone calls that end & fill me with the utmost happiness & gratitude because our friendships still lives in between the phone lines. everything may have changed, but we decided to grow separately, not apart; make sure to grow, & grow a lot, then pick up the phone to tell me all about it.
with all my love,
♡steff
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