Growing through distance, not away from it

I used to think being in a relationship meant being everywhere in someone’s life. Knowing who they were with, what they were doing, how quickly they’d answer—I didn’t question that assumption much. It was how relationships around me worked. If you weren’t constantly in touch, something was probably wrong.

Social media didn’t invent that idea, but it definitely feeds it. There’s always another “rule” floating around. The “three-month rule,” when things supposedly get real, or the idea that “if they wanted to, they would.” There’s comfort in those rules. They make relationships feel predictable, but they also make them fragile.

I carried that mindset with me through most of high school and into post-secondary. I spent four years in a relationship, the kind that shapes who you are before you even realize it’s happening. When you’re fifteen, sixteen, or seventeen, you’re a whole new person every year. It’s easy to let a relationship become part of your identity instead of something that exists alongside it.

When you grow up beside someone, you don’t always notice where you end, and they begin. Your routines merge, your plans overlap, your sense of security becomes tied to their presence—and without meaning to, you start measuring stability by how close they are.

When that relationship ended, it didn’t just hurt, it altered my understanding of trust. Distance had exposed issues I wasn’t ready to handle. After that, long distance felt like the worst nightmare. I became hyperaware, overly cautious, and convinced that security was something you had to constantly monitor and protect.

I didn’t just fear being hurt, I feared being unaware. Distance stopped feeling like physical space and started feeling like a warning. Every delayed response felt heavier than it should’ve. Every quiet moment felt like something I needed to solve. I carried that tension for longer than I realized.

By the time I arrived at Queen’s as a first-year student, after completing two years of college at home, I was still carrying that weight. University already feels disorienting. You leave home, lose your routines, and figure out who you’re when no one’s watching.

For the first time in my life, I wasn’t someone’s boyfriend before I was anything else. I was just me, in a new city and a new environment, surrounded by people who didn’t know my past. That was both freeing and unsettling. There’s comfort in being known through a role, but also growth in stepping outside of it.

But something else had changed, too. I wasn’t fifteen anymore. I wasn’t trying to hold onto someone out of habit or fear of being alone.

When I started seeing someone new, I was aware of how much of my overthinking I was bringing with me. She wasn’t part of my high school years—she didn’t know past versions of me. This was a different relationship, with a different person, and I didn’t want to repeat the same patterns.

Starting another long-distance relationship in September felt risky. Distance had once been the condition that tore things apart for me.

This time, the foundation was different. We didn’t build our relationship around constant access or outside opinions. We built it around conversations, clarity, and saying what we meant instead of assuming the other person should already know.

It wasn’t that the distance suddenly became easy. It was that I wasn’t constantly anticipating something going wrong anymore, and she wasn’t giving me a reason to.

The irony is that we’re both from Ottawa. We met there, built something normal and familiar, and then left in opposite directions. Her to North Bay and me to Kingston. Two different campuses, two separate schedules, and a decision to keep showing up for each other anyway.

There are no quick visits on hard days, no physical closeness to fall back on, and barely any face-to-face conversations. Everything has to be so intentional.

It forced me to understand the difference between needing someone and simply missing them. Needing someone, at least in the way I used to experience it, felt like anxious-attachment. Missing someone is genuine; it’s a reminder that they matter. This time, being apart taught me that I can miss her without questioning my relationship.

Now, I measure my relationship with consistency and honesty. Whether we both have space to grow without feeling threatened by it. It means letting her build her life in North Bay while I build mine here and trusting that neither of us are drifting—we’re just growing.

For the first time, I’m confident in my relationship, not because I can see every part of it, but because I don’t need to. It no longer feels like something I have to constantly hold together. It can stand on its own.

The difference that makes in my life is hard to put into words. There’s something incredibly calming about being with someone who supports your growth instead of competing with it. Someone who celebrates your independence instead of fearing it. Someone who trusts you, and in doing so, teaches you to trust them back.

She doesn’t make me feel watched; she makes me feel understood. I’m not defined by my relationship anymore. I’m myself first, and being her boyfriend is something I’m lucky enough to be.

In a time where everything feels transitional, she has been constant in the best way. Not constant because she’s always physically here, but because her support doesn’t change with distance.

There are five-hour drives and 12-hour bus rides between Kingston and North Bay. Weekends get planned weeks in advance. Goodbyes at stations feel heavy. But things don’t shift when we’re apart, if anything, it makes the time we do have together feel earned.

I’ve grown more secure in my relationship, but even more, I’ve grown secure in who I am. Long distance has taught me the importance of choosing someone who supports your growth, no matter where you are. I’m grateful for the distance that once scared me, but more than anything, I’m grateful it’s her on the other end of the phone.

Growing through distance, not away from it

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