Most of you who read this already know me personally and know that I come from a split family. My mom and dad were never married and what I gather from stories, they loved each other they just couldn't live with each other. So they split and shortly thereafter I was born and shortly after that my Dad went back to Wyoming. He's an Ohio boy, born and raised here among the cows and corn, but the Wild, Wild West promised better work and a better life and he answered the call. He still calls Wyoming home with my step-mom and "brotha from anotha motha." Over the years I've come to grips with the reality that my parents are NOT getting back together, that I, in fact, DO like my step-mother and that I have to be at peace with this long distance relationship. And I have, for the most part, come to be at peace with it. Unfortunately, it's been at a cost. I've missed out on SO much of their lives out there that I don't even really know them - and they don't really know me. Which is REALLY sad b/c I'm supa dupa awesome! *tongue in cheek*
No seriously, I've missed my little brother growing up. Gosh, he's married now (Hi, Andrea!) and has two children for crying out loud! He and I had three years together, most of which he doesn't remember b/c he was a baby when I lived out there, and then one short Summer, a quick trip to see him graduate and another to get married. Our abbreviated relationship has left us with little to hold on to. It's kinda weird to think that I have this brother out there 1000 miles away that I don't even know well. I couldn't tell you what his favorite color is, what brand of beer he drinks, if he likes cookies or cake or what precisely he does for a living. I know it's at a coalmine! Points for that? To be quite honest, I don't know those things about my Dad either. Sad.
So the cost of living as a split family (one that lives 1000 miles away from each other) is simply losing touch with each other. For me it's always been gifts and calls from my Dad on major holidays and then we'd call every now and again in between. Now as I've grown into an adult with a family of my own, the calls are even more sporadic and far between. Sometimes holidays pass by without actually getting to talk and suddenly half a year has passed and we may have texted each other somewhere in there? And he's not the only one either, I've just recently gotten back in touch with my Aunt Jo, only to find that she's pretty sick. Damn it! And also my "other mother" Aunt Pen who I just LOVE SO MUCH and the distance we've experienced, when I think about it...brings that hard lump into my throat and I have to fight back tears. Even now, the memories of our time together, coffee on the front porch or reading books together or her driving me back and forth from College, makes my stomach twist hard and I have a real need to be close to her again. Great, here come those damn tears.
Shit. I miss my family. I miss my Dad. He's recently having a difficult time in his neck of the woods and rumor has it that he's not taking it all well. So now I have allllll this distance between us (he's not returning my emails either and I'm trying really hard not to be a "girl" and read into it, but I fear the worst all the same) and I know he's hurting, as are others around him, and I just don't have a dog in the fight so I can't jump in there and help or console or anything. I feel completely handicapped. It doesn't help that air tickets out to their neck will cost you your soul. It's not like flying to Chicago or San Fran or even Las Vegas. Nope, it's like $600 a ticket and I know I'd want/have to take a kid or two with me.
So, today will go on for me like it does most any other day. Laundry. School drop off/pick up. Blues Clues and such. But inside of me all of this, and more, will rolling around, brimming to the top of me, stifled down and suppressed again. It is a cost of being part of a split family.
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