Family

Growing up, I didn’t have any cousins, or aunts, or uncles, or grandparents who were less than a nine hour car ride away. I hate to say it, but at the time, what bothered me most about this arrangement was that seeing extended family usually meant I had to be tortured in an airplane or car first. (As a child I got _violently_ motion sick if I was in any sort of moving vehicle for longer than about 1 hour, on a good day). On the other hand, the infrequency of seeing one another made visits to (and visits from) grandparents and cousins all the more treasured. Since we didn’t see each other so often, it meant that there was a lot of giddiness and excitement, and spoiling all around, and there was never enough time for anyone to get on anyone else’s nerves (at least not too much).
Sure there are cousins that I don’t feel all that close to, and there are some who are best-friend-cousin material, but I really truly like my extended maternal and paternal family. And for that I feel pretty lucky. In the past four years, I’ve had the good fortune to land in cities where extended family lives. The downside of this is that I’m farther away from my parents, but the upside is that I get to experience what it feels like to be part of a clan.
Most recently (as in last week), one of my cousins gave birth to her second child. Not only was I around to share the excitement of the family as we watched her belly grow, but I got to be at her baby shower, where she shared what it’s really like to be pregnant with me in a way that you can only do with people you have some intimacy with. (Pregnancy in general, and in particular what happens to your body, is a source of endless fascination, so I was thrilled).And now that the healthy baby has arrived I’m going to be able to meet him when he’s still teeny tiny --- he’ll probably even still have that new baby smell! Living closer to extended family and being able to take part/witness these very exciting life events, I realize how much I was missing. There aren’t a whole lot of absolutes that make up the tent of my future, but one of the stakes I’m putting in the ground is that I WILL be within a short driving distance from immediate family. I think that if I don’t make it an explicit #1 priority now, it’s one of those things that might get eaten up and swept away as I follow career opportunities and/or romance.