Humans logo

Living Distant

A Piece About Distance and Trying to Overcome the Pain Along with It

By Abbie WattsPublished 6 years ago 5 min read
Like
Does it get better? 

Distance: an amount of space between two things or people.

September 27, 2017. My parents told me that they were THINKING about moving 1,627 miles away this coming summer. To me that was an insane idea. I would be going into my junior year, AKA the hardest year of high school. Everyone would have their “cliques” and friend groups and I would be left on the sidelines. I’ve had the same friends since I was in fifth grade. So leaving them with only two years of high school left was absurd to me. So I pushed the idea aside and simply said no.

Fast forward to December 17, 2017. My parents began making minor changes to the house and preparing it to go on the market. At this point, I knew we were actually moving, but this time I started making arguments. Anything and everything I could argue about, having to do with the house and moving, I was arguing about. I said that I was going to live here with a friend. I was saying, "No we aren’t moving." I was trying to ruin job offers—which now I see wouldn’t have mattered. Even if my dad didn’t get the job, we still would have moved.

Now to March 24, 2018. Our house sold. My parents were so happy that it was off the market. I, on the other hand, was not. I felt as if this was a bad idea to move. Moving my sister, who has Selective Mutism, somewhere where she knows no one at all was not the right thing to do in my opinion. My brother had been getting into trouble at school a lot recently and I felt as though moving him somewhere different wouldn’t help with that. I had finally found my place. The friends that I wanted for the rest of my life, the people I surrounded myself with were absolutely amazing. Just to have that taken away in the middle of high school hurt.

April/May, 2018. These two months were the best months of my life. I was going out with friends all the time, I had good grades, I was meeting all kinds of new people that could help me in life. I was getting new school opportunities and getting enrolled into great classes for my junior year, but I soon realized that I wouldn’t be able to take those classes or those opportunities. I was living my best life during April and May.

June 1, 2018. This was the last day of school. I ended up not going to school and just hanging out with a few friends that day. We talked about new experiences that I would have, new people I could meet, and they were trying their best to shine a positive light on the situation even though I knew they weren’t okay with it.

From that time on to June 6, I was with friends all weeks. We had bonfires, we went out to eat, we just hung out at each other's houses. It was so incredibly fun. It gave me a look at what the summer with them could have been like. June 5, the night before I left, my three best friends took me home. One of them, I’m going to call him B. B took me, my other two friends, V and S, to a park that was on the road from my house. B lived right around the corner from me. We sat on the swings of the playground for two hours, just talking and reminiscing old memories with each other. It was about 2:30 AM when we all finally went home. I went home, laid in bed, and cried all night. I didn’t sleep at all.

June 6. We packed up a few extra things left over and at 6:38 AM I left my whole life behind and pulled out of my driveway for the last time. That day was the hardest day. I cried constantly through driving. We stopped and stayed in Airbnbs along the way, but no matter where I was there was no dry eye from me there. I had been “heartbroken” by losing relationships or friendships, but never like this. This was one of the worst, if not the worst, pains I had ever felt before. My heart physically ached for my friends. It had only been 10 minutes since I left and I was already in tears.

We finally got there after what felt like the longest four days of my life. I didn’t know what to do. I laid in my bed for days. Crying, talking on the phone, sleeping. Trying to just get past this pain. I wasn’t hungry. I didn’t want to be around anyone. When I did go around people, it made me way sadder.

Three months went by and now it was time to start school. It was terrifying. The only other time I had stated a new school was after being homeschooled until fifth grade. Kids are so much nicer in the fifth grade. I’ve been going to school for almost a month now and I’ve made a few friends but nothing like I had back home. I get very sad from time to time. I’ve learned to not let the sadness of being distant keep me from doing things. I’ve joined the same clubs I was in back at my old school. I go to football games too. It’s not the same but I’m trying. Some days are harder than others. Some days don’t go as planned and I break down. Sometimes it’s for no reason at all, it just happens. Living 1,627+ miles away from your friends, or family, or anyone that you may love is so hard and I never wish that kind of pain in anyone. So if there’s a lesson to be learned here, it’s take advantage of the time you have with loved ones. I swore up and down we weren’t going to move and I didn’t spend enough time with my friends and there’s nothing I regret more than that.

friendship
Like

About the Creator

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.