The abroad blues

Julia Spiegel
Email: julspieg@indiana.edu

My best friend left for Scotland this week. He is studying abroad at the University of Edinburgh. As excited as I am for him, I cannot help but feel an assortment of other less-positive emotions. For one, I am stuck here in the Midwest, and for all its redeeming qualities – the frigid cold not being one of them – Indiana does not compare to the land of kilts and whisky. I am also bitter because he gets to adventure; he gets to enjoy a segment of his life that I have waited for and fantasized about. Still, there is something deeper bugging me. What if he changes? What if our friendship is due for alterations?

Nathan and I are friends from high school. We took some theater classes together. We had a short-lived romance. Nearly three years later, he is one of my closest friends. In the time between then and now we went from immature flirting to a closeness that happens with only a few people.

I know I am not the only person losing a friend to the allure of exotic places and interesting people. We are in college; classmates study abroad all the time. Siblings, significant others and best friends constantly deal with distance. I do not think I am the first person to worry about a relationship shift. So until I can be the one packing my bags for a foreign country, (Buenos Aires, here I come) I will have to figure out a way to come to terms with circumstances out of my control, just like everyone else.

It does not matter if someone is in Boston or Budapest; staying in touch is the best way to prevent major holes from forming in a relationship. As many people in similar situations have figured out, Skype is essential for staying connected. E-mail is also a handy tool, and of course, the beloved Facebook. Technology substantially bandages the distance wound.

But what about the simple fact that studying abroad often yields major changes in a person’s perspective, in the way they grow? I can’t stop him from experiencing, or from growing, and I don’t want to. I can’t wait to go through it all myself. The key is to accept the potential shift in personality and minimize the surprise through whatever amount of contact you can uphold.

This is a time of personal development and self-discovery for everyone, and those individual changes shape our relationships. For everyone out there who is nervous about someone they care about studying abroad, take comfort in the fact that there are ways to ease the damage distance can do and that relationships change and mature regardless. In truth, my friend could move to Bloomington for the semester and our interactions would inevitably shift.

Besides, the changes that have already occurred in my relationship with Nathan over the past three years will most likely outweigh those that some bagpipe playing will do.