Blood Relations

Imagine the most crazy family reunion you've ever been to. You know, with the drunk aunts, naked uncles, punk cousins, rich grandparents, etc. You look around and think, "are these people really related to me?" You can't believe that the eighty-year-old dancing on the table is really a blood relation. Or maybe you see the resemblance all too well. And yet, these are the people that you are connected to. For life.

These people haunt your every waking hour, from the moment your mom calls to see if you're alive to the time when your older sibling outshines you in an activity, to the day when your dad decides to teach you how to fix a car. They seem like the most annoying people you know, the most obnoxious, nagging, persistent family ever, and you wish they would just leave you alone. But they can't.

You are tied to them and they are tied to you in a way that can never be broken. You may not believe me, but there will come a time when you will appreciate this bond. There are moments in life when all our friends abandon us, everything we held dear is ripped from our grasp, and the priorities we once had are switched around entirely. The moment that happens to you, you will realize that the one stable thing in your life that can never change is who you're related to. In that moment, the best thing you can do is call up a family member and tell them all their woes. Because even if you despise them, they will understand the gravity of the situation simply by the fact that you're calling them.

So, if you're looking for a best friend, turn to your sister, if you need advice, ask your father, if you need a guy to spend your Saturday evenings with, invite your brother to a movie. Trust me, it'll be worth it.

I Miss You

This post is a shout-out to all those people I miss right now. You may not even know who you are. Some of you are family, some are friends, some are a mixture of both.

Some of the people I miss are down the hall from me right now. But I miss talking with them. I miss spending time with them. I miss hanging out with them, laughing, playing, joking around, and having fun with them. I miss spending time with the people I love because work, school, family, relationships, personal issues, and more have kept us apart.

A lot of the people I miss are thousands of miles away. They live across the country and I only see them a few times a year. Perhaps it's not the distance that makes me miss them so much as the lack of communication and emotional space between us. I don't write them enough and they don't write me. I miss them so much my heart aches, but I don't pick up the phone and call, go on the computer and write, or send a quick text because I'm focused on where I am physically and how much of a distance there is between us. It's stupid, really. My sister lives the same distance away and I chat with her every single day. I miss her too, by the way.

I miss the people that I talk to every day because they're thousands of miles away and I can't see their faces. I miss them because I know so much about them, I care about their lives, I love them so much, but I can't be with them. Even on the occasion that I can see their faces via video chat, it's not enough. Then I want to hold them, to hug them, to sit them down next to me and make them tell me everything.

There's more to it, though. I don't just miss people. I miss my life from the past. I miss being little and pretending our mailbox was an oven and cooking soup beneath it. I miss the days when I would walk over to my friend's house every day at 3:20 PM to greet her when she came home from school. I miss the days when I could go visit the chapel every time I had a spare moment. I miss the times when I lived with forty of the most awesome teenage girls I've ever met. I miss staying up late at night talking with my sister about the most random and stupid things. I miss going to Starbucks with my small group of friends and talking about our "intellectual superiority" after riding around in shopping carts.

Life just keeps going and it doesn't stop. Ever. It twists and changes and bends into things we never expected it to be. One day you wake up and realize that you haven't talked to your "best friend" in months. You'll understand that your baby sister is all grown up. You finally admit that those jeans just don't fit you anymore. Sometimes you just need to accept these changes of life and keep going. Other times, you need to pick up your cell phone and call your friend. You need to go on your computer and e-mail that person you miss. You need to eat healthier to be the happy person that used to be you. Maybe the reason we miss people and things is so that we can appreciate them more when we meet them again.