I just returned from spending a long weekend in Arizona with my four sisters. My younger sister, Bekka, is pregnant with her first baby due in a month and we cooked up a surprise girls trip to spend time with her before Baby Girl makes her grand entrance. It was a wonderful few days, full of good conversation, games, long walks, yummy food, laying out in the warm AZ sun (and accompanying sunburns), movies and TV watching, shopping, and more. It was also really fun for me to see some of my good friends who live in the Phoenix area.
The weekend also made me reconsider some of my assumptions about our future and life decisions. I didn't grow up living near grandparents and cousins and consider myself a very independent person with no expectation of living near family. Not that I don't love them, but we've moved so many places that we've learned to bloom where we're planted and make our friends our family. I even secretly shook my head at people who were dying to move "back home" as soon as they finished their little adventure away from the bosom of the motherland for school or what have you. My perspective being that the world is a big place and there's alot you can contribute and learn in situations that are unfamiliar. As someone who loves to travel, I actually enjoy that initial discomfor that comes with being in new territory and long for others to experience that as well. Especially when people have lived in one place their whole life or in an extremely homogeneous society. Maybe it's a sadistic pleasure.
Yet as I flew home today, the woman in the seat next to me asked about the reason for my trip and I teared up when I told her that I had spent a few days with my sisters. It hit me then how much they and the rest of my family mean to me and that maybe we will have to choose to live closer so that our kids can get to know their cousins and we can keep those all-important familial ties alive. We really enjoy Ohio and I've always said that we'll go wherever Andy's career takes us and where we feel that God wants us to be. That is still true. But perhaps we'll come to a point where we'll have to make the hard decisions to forego increased salary or advancements so our kids can spend more time with their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not planning on moving to Utah or my hometown in Eastern Washington, just somewhere that is only a 1-2 hour plane ride away instead of an all-day travel marathon.
I thank my sisters, who keep hounding me to start texting, for keeping in touch through regular old cellphone chats so that we can feel close even though we're in four different states. I also appreciate our siblings and parents who are willing to come out and visit us when it isn't the most convenient thing for them either. Love you guys and thanks for all you do.
How do you stay close to family, whether you're close or far away? What are the benefits or drawbacks you've seen of both situations?
10 comments:
Nollie, it was SO delightful to see you! I've thought a lot about those very things you mentioned. For me, it's been difficult the past few months to be far from my family. I've compensated by getting unlimited texting and more cell phone minutes.
As someone who had pretty much no relationship with extended family, I would like my children to know their cousins. I don't know if that means returning to the "motherland" but it's something we want to be very aware of when we make big decisions about moving.
I've been thinking you really should move closer to Andy's parents. Not that there's anything in that for me. :)
I heard that you were at church on Sunday... I'm one of those sissies you are talking about and proud of it! :) We're buying our first house out in east Mesa and I'm getting ready for that awkward feeling that goes with the new territory.
Welcome home!! And how is your book going?
Liz (and others in the same boat), you're not a sissy and I hope no one's offended by my comment. You just are a lucky one who knows what it's like to have family nearby and have chosen that as a priority. Good luck with the move, you'll do great!!!
I completely agree!! Sometimes I even dread going to see my family or having them come see me because I know how hard it will be to go back to my normal life. I feel like I can manage just fine when I don't know what I'm missing. One time, after saying goodbye to my mom, I was walking through the airport crying so hard that a female gate worker had to come ask me if I was okay. Through hyperventilating sighs I said "I..just..said...goodbye...to my mom". She said "Oh, honey I know how that is" and then hugged me and sent me on my way.
My family has a family website that we all post news, pictures, videos and things on - it really helps us stay in contact (especially with brothers who NEVER call anyone).
I use to think the way you did but one of the best things I've learned from the Besich family is what a blessing it is to have family close. It makes me sad a lot of the time that our family doesn't live closer. I suppose that's why I call to say nothing or hound you about getting in on the texting action. I suppose that will have to do for now. I'm still an advocate of all of us putting down roots in AZ. Or I guess I could settle for you living in Zion:) Either way, I miss you guys and I'm so glad you came to visit.
Don't leave us, Nollie! :-)
Really, I understand completely, though. Having Anna here is what makes it bearable for us a lot of the time. Something about the kids not knowing their cousins at all just makes me so sad.
this is so weird that i just read this post after all the things i've been thinking about lately. that second paragraph i could have written about myself WORD FOR WORD. see, patrick got a new job offer, and we just decided last week to take it. it is in denver CO which is where my parents and 3 of my siblings live! i love my family so much, but i've always liked being independent and doing my own thing and i love that same thing now that i have a family of own-- i feel like it's all the more exciting when my whole family is able to get together. i think that when i tell people that i'm nervous about living close to my family, that they think that means i don't have a good relationship with them, which is not true. i'm very sad to leave charlotte and lose our own little life that we have out here!
Both of our families live in Idaho and we live in North Carlina. We really enjoy it! At first, I thought, "when are we going to go back out west." But it has been a blessing to be this far away and I like that when we go to visit our kids get uninterrupted time with their grandparents and everyone puts their lives on hold to see us, so I don't really feel like we are missing out.
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