Graduating college and leaving the comfort of a small, insulated bubble of a town puts you in this interesting predicament. You’re straddling the edges of two worlds and the people you felt closest to are off in different pockets of the country.

Two years later, I haven’t fully adjusted to being hundreds and thousands of miles away from my best friends. You Gchat. Text. Tweet. Email. Group text. Group chat. Snapchat (this is where I draw the line). You feel so uber connected and you know exactly what is going on in their lives but nothing compares to unexpected two-hour lunches or knowing exactly what happy hour you will be attending every, single night of the week. Nothing beats walking out the front door of your shady, seedy apartment building and bumping into familiar faces while walking to class.

No one tells you that graduation is lonely or that you’ll become a pro at figuring out the time in Colorado or California or Hawaii. (Time zones…fucking time zones.) Never mind if you have friends in serious relationships that need to schedule dinner dates and work around business trips. Planning six weeks in advance to see your friends blows. You become a slave to your Google calendar with its colored labels; you sign up for credit card that gives you frequent flier miles. No matter how connected you may be or how often you speak, there is the nagging truth that you will be able to count on your hands the number of times you will all be in one place again.

Once you start adding marriages and kids into the mix, the reality is every day has turned into major football weekends to once a year to only significant life occasions.

So how do you make this a positive thing? You sit back and look at the afternoons spent outside on your favorite bar’s back porch and and the nights spent in random living rooms watching bad television. These are the people who have made a monumental impact on the greatest four years of your life. Even if it you don’t seem them NEARLY as much as you’d like, you know they’ll always be a part of your life. Regardless of zip code, time zone, marital status or permanent address.

That doesn’t feel lonely at all.