Long Distanceness

One thing my mother always told me was that long distance friendships/relationships hardly ever work out. That may have just been her way of trying to keep me from dating this boy from a different town back in high school, but nevertheless, I thought that long distance anything would be impossible. Going to college, living in Orlando for a summer, and living with people from all over the world has proven my mother's theory impossible.

You see, last summer I spent 2 months living in Orlando and working at Walt Disney World (yeah, if you know me you're probably shaking your head and smiling right about now). Over those two months, I created bonds that are so strong, they will never die. No matter how hard my mother's theory tries to kill them, they aren't going anywhere. I have a best friend in France. I have a best friend who lives in Florida and who is going to be moving to Missouri at the end of this summer. I have friends in New Mexico, California, Colorado, Kentucky, Tennessee, China, Mexico, and most of them don't stay in the same place for too long. For example, Friend who lives in Kentucky only goes to school in Kentucky, but her family lives in Pennsylvania. I have a friend who goes to school in Illinois, but lives in Minnesota. I have a friend who just travels everywhere and somehow manages to stay in touch.

Tonight, I got to talk to a best friend (Kelly) who lives in Florida and will be moving to Missouri and another friend who was born in Thailand (Patreeya) via Skype. I haven't talked to Kelly in a month or maybe even more (our lives are crazy, we understand). I can't even begin to describe the amount of joy the flowed through my body when I saw her face on my computer screen... no joke. Her smile could out shine a thousand light houses. AND I get to see her in just a little over 2 weeks! =D And then, she says that Patreeya was sitting right next to her! So, I got to see Patreeya and chat with her for a little bit. I haven't talked to Patreeya since last summer, so it's been about 10 months. But seeing her was absolutely phenomenal. It really makes me wonder what I would do if our entire project (all of the people that I lived with last summer) had a huge reunion. I can't even begin to imagine the amount of joy that would bring.

Any who. All of my life, I've been told that long distance anything is impossible. WRONG-O!

^ I'm going to Disney world with my friend who goes to school in Chicago and lives in Minnesota (Jess)... what? That doesn't happen. Not real.

^ Kelly and I have vowed that our children will be so close, they'll say that they're cousins.

^ My friend in France (Philippe) wants to pay for my plane ticket to come over there so I can come visit and see his country. That's across the big blue thing called an ocean. That's pretty long distance if you ask me and we're still thick as thieves! All because of one summer...

Absolutely impossible. I made all of these lifelong friends because of one summer in Orlando, Florida working at the happiest place on earth where dreams come true. Maybe it was a little bit of Disney magic. I know for sure that God has his hand in all of this. He has brought me the most amazing friends, the most amazing community, and the most amazing ways to prove my mother's theory wrong.

I could put individual pictures of every person I've talked about thus far and elaborated more on how much they mean to me, but I think this picture will suffice. This is almost everyone I lived with this summer. Almost. They are all such a blessing to me. We surfed some gnarly waves together and became one huge family.

It was kind of fun.