My best friend and Exception moved a few states away a couple years ago. It stays hard for a long time, there’s no question about that. He moved in Jan 2020, so as you can probably imagine the plan was supposed to be “let me get settled in and then either I’ll come back to visit or you can come meet the people I moved in with and see the place”, but turned into us not seeing each other for 3 years in person. My heart broke daily for a few months. Weekly and sometimes more often for the rest of that time.
I fell into doing stupid stuff for a bit without realizing how much of it came from coping poorly with his absence. I called him when I got scared of who I was becoming every time but never made the connection because there were other circumstances pushing me to that too. I cut that out - unintentionally right before his first visit back. I couldn’t be happier or more proud of myself, especially for my accidental perfect timing.
It really didn’t stop until last year when he came to visit for the first time. It destroyed me when he left again, but I enjoyed every second. He visited again for a few days and is leaving today. While it still hurts like hell as the minutes are getting close to when he leaves for the airport in a few hours, there is something distinctly different than the pain used to be.
I know he’ll be back, and he brought up trying to have me come visit him sometime soon so I could start saving up to do that on this trip, so I know that the pain isn’t just me. He isn’t happy to leave in that he’s happy to not have me nearby. Him loving his home and the people he lives with and knows there doesn’t change that he loves me too (platonically; please learn how to tell yourself AND your friends that you love them). This visit made me realize that our friendship hasn’t changed at all. The way we feel about each other and the way we talk and laugh and stay up all night because sleep just doesn’t matter the same way it does with everyone else - none of that is different. It may happen less frequently, but it’s all the same. Put us in a room together and it’s still all the same. If anything, we’ve doubled down on all of that, but it wasn’t intentional. We didn’t have to think about “oh we should talk like we used to while we have the chance”, we just did it like we always have.
I don’t agree with what some people say - that the friendship will change when someone you love moves from walking distance to flying distance. I think that’s something you think will happen, but if the friendship is as close as we are at least, it surprises you that that doesn’t. Despite my hurt today, despite me crying even while typing this, despite the sobbing I know is coming after I walk back in my door, I know in my heart we’re the same.
I know that we are a matured version of the same kids that were everything for each other from the time we met through when we graduated. And I know that despite the (good but sometimes painful) fact that he has other people he can rely on too, we never stopped being everything for each other. More than one person can be that. More than one person can mean the world to you.
I’d live and die for him, and I have lived for him a million times when I didn’t want to. This is, I am certain, not the end of us at all. We are still so young. This is still just the beginning. There will be so much more to come.
I realized all of that this time. And now that it won’t be years between seeing each other (assuming things go to plan) - more importantly that I’ve had it proven to my brain that that really wasn’t what he wanted and was truly a product of the circumstances - I know I’ll be okay. All it is is a little extra time between those all nighters and some new pets for us to meet when we do hang out. And in the meantime, we keep learning more about ourselves so we get to know more about each other.
It has been and always will be an honor to have him in my life, and I look so fondly back on the stupid thing I said that day we met that got us here and fondly to wherever life brings this friendship next.
Friends may fall out of touch, but best friends very much can last a lifetime. I can’t see my life without him and I don’t want to learn how. He’s told me before that he feels the same.
All this to say that if anyone is struggling with someone you love moving away now, the growing pains will leave soon and be replaced with the knowledge and comfort that not a single nor a million miles can take away what you have. Text them. Call them. Make a group chat with them and the other people you love. Send a meme or cute picture of your cat. Remind yourself that you two still do talk even if it’s by a different method than it used to be - that the contact is still there. And, as soon as you can, plan a visit for those late night conversations and see that it’s all still there.
This time, some of these tears are tears of joy. With ASPD you often can’t tell if people care about you, but I made myself really listen to him this time every time he talked about us instead of getting in my head wondering if he hated me (though of course my brain still tried that) and noticed how often he both casually and emotionally spoke about our importance to each other.
