Far away friendship

I bet we’ve all experienced a long distance friendship at some point in our lives, it can be tough, right? I was lucky to be reunited with one of my best friends last weekend, we spent a couple of nights in Salford Quays’ Premier Inn in Manchester which was lovely and so I thought I’d write a little blog post about it, for the sake of documenting the memories but to also share a few ways we maintain our long distance friendship in the hope it can help a few of you out too.

If you are a regular reader of my posts then you will know all about one of my best friends, Holly from the blog Life of a Blind Girl, since we’ve done quite a few collaboration posts before and we have a series together called ‘Seeing through sight loss‘ which this post is also a part of.

We met for the first time back in August last year (you can read the post about that day here) so it had been about seven months since we last saw each other which is such a long time but although that time had passed, nothing had changed when we met again, it felt like we had never been apart (cheesy but true).

(A photo of Holly and I).

As I mentioned, we stayed at the Premier Inn at Salford Quays, we had an accessible room which was the first room after going from reception so it was easy to find, this was so important to us and very helpful as we didn’t have to wander around the corridor wondering which room was ours.

The staff at the hotel were so lovely too, they were all very helpful and were prepared to assist us with anything we needed which made our stay so much better and put our minds at ease. We were guided to and from the breakfast area and they made sure we got back to our room safely. I couldn’t fault the service we received.

Our parents very kindly took us to the hotel (thank you mum) and we all had a meal together on the Friday night before they headed home. We spent Friday night unpacking and catching up which was so lovely. As for Saturday, we went for breakfast mid-morning and spent some time in our room. We then decided to grab our canes and head out for some fresh air. Our parents had shown us the route to the waterfront the night before so we had an idea of which way to go once setting out of the hotel.

I’m quite proud to say that we managed to walk to the benches by the waterfront without crashing into anything, tripping over or falling into the water so this was a big achievement for us because walking around somewhere new isn’t the easiest thing to do as a visually impaired person.

After making our way back to the hotel we ordered a couple of dominos pizzas (which were very delicious may I add) and spent the evening watching a bit of television, listening to music and having a whole lot of laughs!

This was probably my favourite part of the weekend because I genuinely felt really happy for the first time in a long time. It’s so nice to be able to be my complete self around someone without feeling anxious or wary of what I do or say.

Sunday was bittersweet, we were so happy to have been able to finally spend some time together after going months without talking in person but we felt a little sad because we knew we had to say goodbye again in a matter of hours.

We made our way to the waterfront again to eat our lunch and waited for our families to come pick us up. It didn’t end there though as once Holly’s parents and my mum and brother arrived we all went for a coffee and went for a walk by the waterfront towards media city where we took some photos.

Saying goodbye was hard but we’re meeting again in six weeks time to go see Shawn Mendes’ Illuminate world tour so saying goodbye this time wasn’t as difficult as the last time around as back then we didn’t know when we’d see each other again.

I couldn’t be more grateful to have had such an amazing weekend with someone I am very lucky to be able to call a really close friend.

Who knew that such special friendships could be created through blogging eh?

In addition to the reflection of our weekend we thought we’d share a few ways we manage to make our long distance friendship work.

Holly lives in York and I live in Wales so it is quite a trek from one place to another hence why we hadn’t seen each other for seven months before last weekend. I think many people have friends who live quite a distance away and although it’s not always easy to deal with, it is still possible to maintain a strong friendship.

Here’s how we maintain ours despite the miles between us.

Keep regular contact

Hols and I constantly text, it’s just nice to keep each other updated on what’s going on in our lives (not that we have interesting ones, well I don’t anyway) but it’s always nice to keep in contact. I think it’s always important to have a few phone calls every so often too as sometimes texting doesn’t feel as personal.

Start something together

You might be thinking what I mean by this point but I have a couple of examples to share with you. As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, Hols and I have a blogging series together which we started to raise awareness of vision impairment and talk about our experiences with different things.

It’s nice to write those posts and also to write posts like this one which we will be able to look back on in the future. We’ve also created a collaborative Spotify playlist filled with all our favourite songs, we have similar music tastes so it’s nice to share our favourite tunes together. Another idea would be to create a collaborative dropbox folder, somewhere for you to upload all the cute photos with each other from the times you meet so you can look back on them or you could upload photos of things going on in your life when you’re apart (this idea might be directed more towards those of you who are sighted but I think it’s a nice thing to do).

Always have the next time you’re going to meet in the works

This makes saying goodbye that little less painful, knowing when you’re going to see each other is so much better than saying goodbye not knowing if you’ll see each other  in weeks or months.

Having a timeline tentatively in the works means that you can countdown to that date together and it makes it all so much more exciting.

Think about ‘one day’

Making plans for the future is so exciting, think about ‘one day’ you might be able to live in the same city, make plans for the future that will motivate you both.

Remind your friend that although they’re far away you’ll always be there for them

This is something we do on a regular basis, it’s so nice to hear those words, knowing that someone misses you and cares for you is really special. Remember that friendship can stretch over any distance.

I’m so lucky to have found such a special friend through blogging and, as I said earlier, I am so incredibly grateful to call Holly my best friend. Dealing with the distance can be difficult sometimes but what I have realised is that distance means so little when someone means so much.We might be far apart but we have such a close friendship.

Read Holly’s post here.

How do you go about maintaining a long distance friendship? I’d love to know if you find it easy to look after your friendships and what tips you have in terms of keeping them strong.

Elin x