At the height of the pandemic, a good friend of mine got stuck overseas during winter break and was unable to return to school. At first, I didn’t think much of it. School was online anyway, and they would be coming back next year. But one day I received a gut-wrenching text: “I’m not sure whether I should come back next year.” I wanted them to come back. I wasn’t sure if we would be able to maintain our friendship if they moved away.

Long distance friendships hadn’t always worked out for me in the past. I promised my old friends from America to keep in touch when I moved, but we never really did. Along with trying to adjust to a new country and school, I wasn’t really good at texting. I felt guilty for not texting them, angry at them for not reaching out first and unsure as to whether they wanted to remain friends.

But this time, I refused to lose another friend to physical distance. At the start, I made sure to try and check in regularly, but it still felt like our lives were drifting apart. When we were still going to school together, we could text and complain about our teachers or assignments. The lack of shared experiences, as they also transferred from the IB to the AP program, significantly narrowed our conversations.

I’d try to keep them updated on whatever was happening at school, but conversations felt somewhat one-sided. Even when we were able to hold an actual conversation, they always seemed to be cut short by the 16 hour time difference. Soon our conversations dwindled to just sending a few posts a day, but I felt I owed it both to myself and to my friend to keep trying. I doggedly sent post after post, refusing to let go of the last slim thread that connected us.

Over a year after they had moved back to America, we finally arranged to meet in person. I was nervous that we would have nothing to talk about, that our friendship was irreparably damaged by its meager diet of stupid memes, that the real connections we had since they left were too few and far.

However, as it turned out, one meme a day was enough to close the thousands of miles between us. When we met, it was like we were together just yesterday. The half day that we spent together made up for all the lost opportunities for shared experiences and gratified the faith we had in each other all along. Since our meeting, even though now we’re apart again, we say “I love you” like it’s nothing.

Now, I have a newfound confidence in my relationships with the people I don’t get to see regularly. Maintaining long distance friendships had seemed daunting, if not impossible, but all it took was one successful attempt to shed my fears. A little more confidence and faith in myself and my friends was enough to help me to keep even more long distance friendships alive as I transitioned to college.

Before I left Japan to go back to America for summer break, another friend and I bought small plants that we promised to grow together once we both moved to college. My old insecurities made me wonder if she would remember, but I made sure to pack mine. A month later, I texted her on a whim — unsure if she would respond — as I moved into my dorm at NYU Abu Dhabi and faced a sense of loneliness emanating from my empty room. A few minutes later, she called me. The connection was patchy and the video barely worked, but it didn’t matter. We knew we were both on the same page about our friendship, as if we weren’t apart at all. A few weeks later, we planted our seeds together, a motivator to text each other updates every few days.

Our plants are growing steadily now, and we’ve made plans to speak again, watch a show together and meet in person at the end of the academic year. I’m not sure how many of those promises we’ll be able to keep, but it still means a lot to me that we’ve made them. I tend to get swept up in whatever new place I’m in, but I didn’t want to lose the most important parts of my life before moving here. I’m now sure that I won’t.

Every long distance friendship I’ve managed to keep has been different. Some require frequent communication even if we only text a post or a picture a day. Some need a more lengthy check in every now and then or a spontaneous call. Every relationship needs to be tended to in its own way. Social media can help close the distance, and it can also be helpful to have a physical object as a reminder to connect two people. Sometimes all you can feel is distance, but now I know that all it takes is for you to reach out — either with a stupid meme or an occasional call.