This post originally appeared on ourhousegsu, a blog for students in the Campus Journalism First Year-Experience class at Georgia Southern University.

I am doing something different, and talking about the sad experiences I feel here at Georgia Southern.

In order to tell this story about me clearly, I need to take us back to almost a year ago where I was a senior in high school thinking about what college I wanted to go to. It might be hard to believe, but there was a time I wasn’t going to go to this school. Now I had just started dating my boyfriend, Ty, and when it was time to get serious about where I wanted to go, we were only dating for two months. And even though we were best friends for a year or so before we dated, it was still all new. I applied and got accepted to Georgia Southern University. And he already decided on a college – thanks to a football scholarship to Valdosta State University. At this point, I was still debating whether to follow him with just a beginner relationship in hand or go to Georgia Southern University to be safe. A few months later as we got more serious, he convinced me to follow through the application to Valdosta State University. I was 99% done with it, I just needed to submit it. I even told my parents that’s what I wanted, and they supported me.

But I just couldn’t do it – not with my logical reasonable thinking. So I left it, and declared myself to be a future Georgia Southern student. And I didn’t really know how to feel. At the time, I thought I was doing what was right for us or maybe it was right for me. And in a relationship, doing something for yourself is probably one of the hardest things to do.

As more and more time went by, our time together was running out. We were going to go from being with each other everyday to hopefully seeing each other one weekend a month. Even talking about it was tough so how were we meant to even experience it? This was our first relationship that we had to do long distance, and we had no clue what to expect. There was no manual on this stuff, and if there was, well I probably should’ve read it.

I knew my boyfriend was secretly hoping that I would change my mind last minute, and present him with the email that I got accepted into Valdosta State University, and pack my bags and start our college life together. And there was a possibility of that happening, it wasn’t too late, and I was contemplating it. But in the end, life isn’t a fantasy, but a reality.

Now, I am on my third month as a freshman college student, specifically as a Georgia Southern student. I decided to stick with my decision to come to Statesboro while he is 162 miles away at Valdosta. It was a tough decision that I made for the both of us that he was highly saddened about (in the manliest way though.)

How am I? Well honestly, I’m not too sure. Some days, I feel at home. Other days, I feel so disconnected with the world.

It isn’t easy, it’s rather difficult. It isn’t fun, it gets boring. It’s not full of happiness, I get sad a lot. It isn’t anything great to be away from the person I love. But each day I am doing what I can to make it bearable. A piece of my heart is away playing his heart out in football. And I am here writing my heart out about us.  I dream of days where we would be experiencing the college life together, where if we wanted to see each other, we would be five-ten minutes away from each other not 185 minutes away.

Georgia Southern is great: the campus is beautiful, the people are great, the professors are amazing.

My boyfriend is great: he’s incontestably sweet, undeniably handsome and overall an amazing human being that I was blessed with.

So what am I supposed to do when my mind wants one thing and my heart wants another? It’s a constant battle that gets tiring, but I manage. Regardless, I don’t regret my decision of being at Georgia Southern because I fell in love with everything here. It’s just a matter on what to do about my future now.