Let me say first off – this will probably not be a popular post topic. This may be something you don’t want to look at or even consider.

As someone who’s in an LDR and who lives on the opposite side of the world of her family, I’m begging you to think on this.

When we fall in love with someone who is far away, it sometimes feels like both the impossible, and the most exhilarating mountain to climb all rolled into one. On one hand, there are the incredible lows of missing one another, of not getting to touch, kiss or simply be together. On the other hand, there is the intense high of that precious one to four weeks together. The time spent travelling together, learning about each other’s lives. Of being a privileged insider into your loved one’s innermost workings and being.

And we plan, sometimes impossibly, a life together, one filled with laundry, daily arguing, and deciding on the best meals for dinner.

I don’t think there’s anything which brings out a relationship’s needs faster than an LDR. It requires all the skill of communication that takes many people years to develop even when living together. It requires patience, love, and understanding.

And it also includes knowing what is important to you, and what is flexible.

After a point, perhaps with all the planning, you may wonder if all the work to close the distance is worth it. And you know what? That’s a valuable question. Don’t shortchange it.

What IS valuable to you? What makes that person you want to live with forever worth it.

I can feel the eye-rolling from here. Bear with me. What makes it worthwhile to you, to give up everything in your country, which can include anything from favorite foods to beloved family/friends?

Some people say love is unselfish. I disagree. It requires looking at what is selfish to us, and knowing if we can work within our limitations. It’s NOT selfish to be close to your family, and need to stay and ask them to move, or to ask for a compromise. Being in love doesn’t mean you HAVE to sacrifice everything that’s important to you.

It’s about priorities. And thinking about your future as you want it, regardless of others. And knowing that there are some things you can handle, and some you can’t.

And as always, a sense of adventure, because having an international love is an adventure all of its own.

Don’t be afraid to have standards for what you can and cannot stand. Don’t be ashamed to say “this is enough, and it needs to change.” And never, ever be ashamed to be who you are. Because in the end, that’s all you have. And all your partner has as well.

And any love that grows within two people’s competing needs is truly special indeed. And that is why an LDR is even more precious than words can describe – because despite all of those needs, wants, and more, it survives.

Love long and prosper, my friends.

Marisol Dunham has been a freelance writer since 2007, and now lives with her once long-distance boyfriend in Australia. An American wandering the bush, she writes about her life and writing ventures on her blog at http://www.madunham.com/. You can find her on Twitter at @maridunham.

Traveling down the Missouri highway during my trip through the US, I heard an intriguing interview with author Susan J. Matt, who studied homesickness as it presented itself in American history. Given my own history with the topic, I listened with interest as she described the country’s history with homesickness.

Something she said struck deep, resonating with me, and something I’m sure so many of us who’ve moved realize as well. Talking about the relation of homesickness and nostalgia, she says:

“…Increasingly people discover that they really can’t go home again and that’s kind of the basis of our modern sense of nostalgia.  I think technology had a lot to do with that when you could take the steamship home and go to your village and realize that it had changed during your absence, or you had changed during your absence…or taken the Transcontinental Railroad home and see that your little town in Massachusetts wasn’t what you remembered.  People realized they couldn’t go home again and that became this new sense of nostalgia that what people are longing for today is a lost past and home is located somewhere in that past, but it’s irretrievable.  In contrast, the homesick want a lost place that they can go back to, it’s only a gulf of geography that separates them, whereas the nostalgic is separated by a gulf of time.” ~Susan J. Matt, To The Best of Our Knowledge interview

Deep inside, I knew that once I left home, it would never be the home I remembered. I experienced this when I left for college; upon returning for Thanksgiving, I was struck by how different things were.

Despite my homesickness, part of what I missed was something that could never be retrieved—the inevitable flow of time had worn away at the ways of my childhood home. Although the people I love and the places I held dear remained, I already knew there was no going back to the place I remembered.

And yet, knowing things will change, regardless of whether we’re there or not, is almost welcome. Life for everyone we know doesn’t stop when we leave, or remain frozen until we return. Life continues, and we don’t have to be afraid to miss it, since we’re experiencing it ourselves.

Even if it isn’t in our old beloved haunts.

Marisol Dunham has been a freelance writer since 2007, and now lives with her once long-distance boyfriend in Australia. An American wandering the bush, she writes about her life and writing ventures on her blog at http://www.madunham.com/. You can find her on Twitter at @maridunham.