difficulties of long distance started to settle in. We both had our work, and I had school--and at the end of the day, the people who are physically present in our lives end up getting our attention.
About a month into the friendship, we found loopholes in the distance.
“Want to watch a movie?” I asked.
“What?” Naturally, he was confused.
Watching movies together became a frequent occurrence after he made me watch Interstellar with him. It was a little game for us: find a free copy of the movie on the internet, time it up so that we were on at the same scene, and pray to God that internet connection didn’t stop one of the movies from buffering.
So this was our friendship: FaceTime lunch dates that lasted for three hours, phone calls late into the night, texting all hours of the day, and watching movies together while we lived 961.3 miles apart.
Until one day, I got a phone call.
“So, guess what? I’ve been asked to tour with one of The Voice contestants around the country, taking his pictures. We are coming to the South in September.”
One Thursday morning, my mom, sister, and I piled into the car and drove three hours to Nashville. Hands shaking, I walked into a motel on the outskirts of the city to meet @imjordanrandall for the first time in person. Sliding hotel doors let me into the lobby, my heart beating so fast I could feel it in my head. There he sat at the farthest table from the door, staring at me. I sat across from him in silence, and we both just stared at each other, sitting in the moment.
“This is weird,” I finally said.
“Right?! There’s finally legs to the voice I’ve been hearing for the past nine months.”
He was different than I had expected: shorter than me, more careful, speaking to me about my love life like a father would.
All we had together was the day in Nashville. We drank coffee and shopped,
and he took pictures. He was less affectionate than I was, and he blamed it on where he came from. I was always telling him I loved him and that he was my best friend, and in response, he just snapped a picture. That day, we didn’t even hug until it was time for me to go back home.
Then, just like that, we went back to talking to each other through a screen every day.
Except, in December, he told me he would be moving seven hours away from me. Some people may think that’s not a big deal, but when your best friend goes from living fifteen hours away from you to seven hours away from you, you throw a little party and do a little dance.
After having taken a year off, Jordan was going back to college, and he was doing it in Florida. We spent Christmas break planning and dreaming, only asking Santa for travel money.
It wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies, though. A month and a half into the semester, we still hadn’t seen each other. He was busy adjusting to a new place, and I was getting frustrated that we hadn’t seen each other yet. In fact, we hadn’t spoken in weeks when I received a text that made me cry.
“What’s the name of the town you live in, again?” he asked.
“Canton?”
After a few moments, he replied: “Oh…. Can I come to Canton for my spring break?”
@imjordanrandall showed up in Atlanta on a Saturday. He slept in my basement for six days. I even took a midterm one morning while he was here.
Having a long distance “friendlationship” taught me a lot more than I could’ve expected: it taught me that friends aren’t just the people you hang out with every day. Your friends are the ones that are there for you when you can’t sleep at two in the morning, the ones who cheer
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