I Miss My Family

 You don't choose your family.  They are God's gift to you, as you are to them.  

~Desmond Tutu

When we got married, we had the belief that we were starting our own family and that when we had kids we would be focusing on our own little unit. That belief was strengthened when we had E and I am glad that both of us feel that it is important to do so. But that doesn't make me miss my other family any less. In fact, I miss them more. And as I have gotten older, I have realized what a blessing my family is and how much I appreciate them. Since having E, every day I wish that we lived closer to my parents and siblings. Since high school (over 10 years ago, yikes!), I have lived away from home. And not just away meaning not at home, but hours away. In Lethbridge, we were 5.5 hours away. Luckily, in Lethbridge I was blessed to be close to a fabulous aunt who was always there for me and provided not only love, but meals and comfort when our bank account was less than full. Moving to Edmonton only made the distance greater. We are now 6 hours away (both distances depending of course on road conditions since the roads to Golden in the winter can be interesting). At times, it feels like an eternity. I know it could be worse. Several of my friends live provinces away from their families.

The distance wasn't so bad when my sister was in Thailand, or my brother was away at college. Things have changed, however, and both are living in Golden again, where both of my parents live, and I am way off in no-mans land. I feel out of touch with a lot of things and that I am on the outskirts of my family (although I know that isn't true). Especially now with my sister having little S for my parents to love and spoil. I don't get to talk and visit as much as I would like. Thank goodness for Skype because otherwise I think I would feel even more on the outskirts. I love that my parents are able to see E grow up, even if it is only in 30 minute snippets on a Skype call.


Don't get me wrong, I actually like not living in the same town as my family (sorry family). There are benefits. I don't ever have to feel like I am being forced to go for dinner or a visit or something like some of my friends who live in the same town as their families. When we go visit, it's because we want to and we try to make the visit count as much as we can. Holidays are much quieter without the stress of feeling like we have to attend multiple Christmas/Easter/thanksgiving dinners (a given when your parents are divorced). And while I don't think either of my parents would just "show up" without warning, the fact that the option isn't there is nice. But even with those benefits, the cons of being SO far away outweigh them. Especially with my sister now joining me in the life of being a mom. It would be really nice to be able to spend more time with her and my nephew. Being so far away means we have to plan each and every visit. And we can't just go for the weekend or for a day visit. Sometimes I wish we could just show up and surprise my mom or dad, and while we have in the past surprised my mom, it took a decent amount of planning. Most of our visits end up being at least four days, but most often a week. I feel like I need a vacation from my vacation when we go back for longer than that. Elias does not usually sleep well there as we have to share a room with him, so we don't sleep well. And there is something to be said for having your own things, especially with a little one.

Ideally, I would love to live 30 minutes to an hour from my family. That is close enough that you can go for a (spontanteous even!) day visit, but far enough that you still would plan most of your visits. But that is unlikely to happen. Unfortunately, there is just nowhere around Golden in that time frame that we want to live. We have thought about Canmore, but it is so expensive to live there. Although, it would be a perfect location with mrblueberry's parents living just south of Calgary and mine living in Golden. We would love to live in Salmon Arm one day, but the pay cut that we would take as teachers is absolutely ridiculous and we wouldn't be able to survive with me as a SAHM. Not to mention, Salmon Arm is still hours away from my parents, and even farther from mrblueberry's!

So where does that leave us? Well, for the time being, it leaves us here in Edmonton. I am thankful that I now have a good support system thanks to momstown, with friends that I know I can call on just as I would call on my family. They certainly don't replace my family, but they help to make the distance not feel so vast. We will rely on Skype, and the little visits we do get, and we will hope that one day we either live closer, or that someone invents a teleportation machine.