A beautiful story by Jennifer Slavik:

“My boyfriend Dan and I have been together for a little over a year now. We met a few months before his college graduation from the U.S. Merchant Marine academy. He is from New Jersey and I’m from Long Island. When we first began our relationship, I had no idea that he would have to go to work on a cargo ship for half of the year! I definitely did not think that I could handle the time apart, but I really liked him and figured it was worth the shot. We spent as much time as we could together for several months before he took a job out of the port in New Orleans. He works a rotation of a month on and a month off. At first, I was completely devastated with him being away from me so much and I didn’t think that I could stand it. Being in the middle of the ocean for days at a time, he doesn’t have internet for email, let alone phones for texting! Now, I can honestly say that it has only made our time together that much more special. We go on trips all the time to make things exciting and give ourselves things to look forward to. (He even surprised me by taking me to Disney for Valentine’s day week!) I’ve learned more about who I am as a person because of him and we are completely in love. The time away and distance apart has done nothing to affect our relationship and we are so incredibly happy together. We trust each other completely in our time apart. We’re going to be moving in together in the next few months and are so eager to move our relationship to the next level. I can honestly say to anyone considering a long distance relationship, follow your heart. It CAN work, and it WILL make your time with that person so much more significant and meaningful than you could possibly imagine.”