I am a guy (23M) with a bachelor’s in Society and the Environment from UC Berkeley. I currently have a job as a forestry Technician getting paid 28 an hour to work 40-50 hours a week. I have a girlfriend (20F) who I love dearly that lives in Bologna Italy doing med school and is very busy. She will be in med school very at least 7 more years and is in year two of her studies already. Her coming over to the states would be an extreme challenge as she has Turkish Romanian citizenship and would have to start her studies all over again. There is a nine hour time difference. We have been together almost a year and it has been fine for the most part, but lately we have been finding it hard to find time for each other. Her class schedule interferes when im free and my work schedule interferes when she is. We usually can talk at night for about half an hour when she wakes up and gets ready, then, maybe for another half hour when i am done with work and she is ready to sleep. Earlier on in the relationship we would find hours in the day to be able to talk to each other, however with my new job, that has stricter hours and many times im out of service, and her struggling in med school, failing many tests, the time we have for each other is dwindling. Yesterday me and her had a talk about this increasing lack of connection between us and a lot of emotions were had. We love each other to much to just call it quits, yet, we cannot see a way forward without dramatically changing our lives. However, I want to figure out a way to end the long distance by living in bologna. I have only a US Passport and do not speak italian. What do I do? How can i close the distance between us? Is it worth it? I want to know if there is anyone out there who has experience with closing the distance in a cross country long distance relationship.