Have you ever come across a skeptical person who just can’t get their head around the fact that your long-distance relationship is a real, loving, and meaningful relationship? Yeah, I think many of us have.
But did you know that research suggests that long-distance relationships can actually be deeper and more meaningful than ones where you get to see your significant other every day? The distance between you can make you communicate better! And you learn to cherish your phone calls, text messages and moments together a lot more.
Sure, a long-distance relationship takes effort, commitment, trust, patience, and love. Sometimes this can be overwhelming, and it can be difficult in that moment to remember all the great things the relationship has to offer. But you know what can really help with this? Remembering all your best moments together! And you know what can help with that? Making a highlights reel of your relationship—a record that recaps your favorite amazing moments.
So without
further ado, here are 8 ideas for how
you can create this sort of “highlights reel of long distance love” for
yourself.
1. Save your best text messages and print them into a book
Especially when you’re in a long-distance relationship, you can send a gazillion text messages back and forward, am I right?
Sometimes you’ll be texting about serious stuff, or updates on
your day. Sometimes they’ll be lovey-dovey sweet messages that warm your heart.
And sometimes they’ll make you burst out laughing.
Over time, though, most of these sweet moments will get lost in
the daily flow of chat messages.
Not any more. With the app called ‘Deary’, you can retrieve your most meaningful text messages and save them into your own diary or print into a book.
Forget taking screenshots of your most loving or funny messages. The app pre-selects your best messages. Then you can then decide whether you would like to keep or discard these messages. Over time, the messages that you save will create your own diary, populated with funny, sweet, or meaningful moments sent between the two of you that you can revisit whenever you want. You can even have the messages printed into your own personal book.
2. Create a photo album
Have you taken many beautiful photos together? Or lots of fun
and silly selfies? Another great way to
capture your relationship would be to create a photo album.
Select the most beautiful and funny pictures of the two of you,
and add pictures of your daily life. This let your other half see what you are
up to when you aren’t physically together. Selecting some of your everyday life
photos is a lovely way of capturing not just your relationship but your long-distance relationship.
There are many amazing photo album creators online (check out how to make Custom Photo Books at Mixbook), or perhaps go old-school and craft your own photo album by hand.
3. Save your letters or start a blog
Sometimes a short text message can’t
come close to capturing all we need to say, and we resort to email, letters, or
blog posts for updates and to share how we feel.
This was me. My husband and I met by
email and exchanged dozens of letters before we ever talked on the phone or met
in person. In fact, we never talked on the phone or via VideoCam before we met
in person in the airport.
(Objectively, that’s sort of crazy, by
the way, and I feel honor-bound to tell you that you should definitely NOT
follow my example in this regard.)
But long story short, it all worked out fine for us. Then, after we got engaged, I was going back through our letters and realized I had a complete record of every word we’d exchanged before we met, so I compiled a book of our letters (and later, used some of them in my memoir, Love At The Speed Of Email.)
If you like to write, another great way
to capture your relationship as you’re going along is to start a blog. If you both contribute
both towards the blog you can share your experience with others, as well as
find out what your partners perspective is on certain topics and get to know
each even better than before.
Decide for yourselves if you want to share this blog with the
whole world, perhaps a smaller LDR community, or to keep it private.
4. Create a movie starring you two
If you love taking videos, creating your own movie might be a
great way to literally make a “highlights reel” of your relationship.
Use videos taken when you were together, of course. But don’t
forget to use some video of daily stuff, too, that happens when you are apart. You
can incorporate video messages, selfie-videos, montages of still images, or
even some of your facetime or other video call moments that you’ve recorded.
If you’re interested in recording your video calls, there are some great apps out there which can record your screen, such as AZ recorder. This makes it possible to remember your best facetime calls and moments together. By the way, however, while we’re talking about recording video calls, it’s not really “on” to record your partner without telling them, especially if you’re going to make this movie public. And it should go without saying that you shouldn’t record and use anything they may find embarrassing.
Also… don’t forget that your partner can record YOU at any time
with the click of a button. So, as my grandma always says, “don’t get naked in
front of a webcam.”
LOL. My grandma doesn’t say that. She barely even knows what a
webcam is and she’d be shocked at the very idea. But you get the point.
So back to your G-rated highlights reel movie starring the two of you… Don’t forget to add a few clips in which you could say what your partner means to you, to tie it all together. Tell them what their funniest, best or even most annoying characteristics are.
5. Create a private silly Instagram page for the two of you
Another fun way of keeping each other up to date and building up
a good picture of your relationship would be to create your private Instagram
page.
If it’s private you can shamelessly share the funniest photos
and stories of each other or yourselves and focus on keeping each other up to date rather than dozens
of other followers. And instead of trying to find
the most perfect pictures in your phone or spamming your all your friends and
family with luuuuuuuv photos, share them with just the two of you. Your own
private little Instagram club, just for the two of you, could be just want you
need to help you focus on what’s most important.
6. Create a playlist with both your favorite music
Another creative way to make something that can represent both
of you and your relationship could be to create a playlist!
Include your favorite songs (I’m loving Something I Need by One Republic at the moment), your partner’s
favorite songs, songs that remind you of special dates or trips together, or some
long distance songs that represent your relationship.
The real bonus of doing this is that
it will become a soundtrack for your relationship.Whenever you listen
to this playlist, you will feel connected and closer together. Listen to these songs
when you guys are apart or when you are together. It will remind you of many
great memories and warm your heart every time.
7. Frame your plane/travel tickets
Long distance relationships and
traveling back and forwards go hand in hand.To see each other again,
sometimes after many months, is always a highlight in a long-distance
relationship. And if your partner lives very far away, it is likely that many
plane tickets have been bought over the years.
Framing your plane tickets is a creative way to remember all the
trips back and forwards. Many plane tickets are digitized these days, so you
can print out your tickets or boarding passes.
Another way to create a record of all the travel is to make an
animation or video showing all the back and forth. If I’d done that in my
relationship with my husband, little planes would have zig-zagged all over the
map—from Los Angeles, to Australia, to Papua New Guinea, to Laos… and more.
I’ve never done this though, because for me, just the thought of
all the hours on a plane for love and work makes me feel exhausted rather than happy.
But to each his own.
8. Create a “memories jar” with all your favorite features of
your relationship
And finally, if
you are feeling very creative, why not craft
your own little “why I love us so much’ jar.
This might
sound super cheesy, but if you sit down for a moment and think of all the
things that make you want to commit to this relationship and this person, it
will thrill you and warm your heart. If you can capture all those things, it
will do the same for your partner!
So grab a glass jar or an empty wine bottle, and start making notes. Check out our page on Open When letters if you’d like some extra inspiration for this. As you finish each little note, fold it up and slip it into your jar or bottle. These notes can literally be about anything– things that you love and respect about your partner, things that you love about you two being together, how they make you feel, favorite long distance love quotes, song lyrics… the possibilities are endless.
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So there you go, guys, 8 ways to make a highlights reel of your relationship.
Do it. Seriously. Pick one and do it. It’ll make you happy. It’ll make them happy. And on days when you’re struggling and wondering if your long-distance relationship is still worth the patience, you can look at the record you made and remember the amazing moments in your relationship and remind yourselves that it is worth it.
Co-author
Fleur Shields is an international business student and passionate social media marketeer at a growing startup.
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