"A thousand miles seems pretty far, but they've got planes and trains and cars, I'd walk to you if I had no other way."
Sure, this may seem like an angsty teenage love song by the Plain White T's, but for me, an only child in a long distance relationship, it is so much more than that.
This is one song that has kept me going over the past three years I've been dating my boyfriend. I don't know if it's the fact that they are actually singing about someone who lives in New York City, or the fact that my boyfriend can play it on the guitar (he's so cool), but what it all really comes down to is communication.
Like I've mentioned, as an only child I rarely ever had to worry about compromising or thinking about other people in my home when I was growing up. I lived with my mom and I just had to listen to her, but even then the most communication we had was which friend's house I was going to, how I was doing in school, and what I wanted for dinner. Our household of just us two was very laid back and straight forward, so we barely ever had to worry about any big issues of communication.
That all changed right after high school when I started dating my boyfriend, Alex, and I moved away to NYC while he stayed in Indiana. It was like communication was the only thing I had to worry about now and it was super frustrating at first since I was an only child used to keeping to myself. All of our problems and disagreements seemed to stem from communication issues. Why didn't you call me last night? When are we going to FaceTime? Or just getting in stupid arguments because of the way we were interpreting each others' texts. You'd think after almost three years we would have mastered the art of communication, but it's still something we have to work toward each and every day.
The big lesson I have taken away from this is to tell each other how you feel all the time. This still isn't easy as an only child, especially since I never had to worry about constantly expressing certain opinions or thoughts to others. Many times my boyfriend and I have gotten into a tiny misunderstanding that shouldn't have become as big of a deal as it did, but we had feelings buried deep down that would come out over the small issue, escalate and then blow the entire thing out of proportion. We could've just avoided the fight altogether if we would have brought up our feelings on the deeper issue beforehand in a mature conversation instead of letting it get to that point.
Things are never perfect, but we have gotten a lot better now. Even though sometimes we don't agree and we still get into arguments when we communicate with one another, they never get out of hand or blow up because we try to tell each other right away rather than wait until a small problem gets brought up and triggers a deeper-rooted issue. If we do get into an argument we always try to talk it out over the phone so that way nothing can be miscommunicated through text messages.
But, whether you have to communicate through texting, phone calls, FaceTime, or in person, communication is always key. Even if it's a simple quote taken from the Plain White T's, it all counts. Learn this lesson the easy way and take it from an only child who spends the majority of her relationship communicating over FaceTime.
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