It's A Big Big World (Unfortunately For My Small Small Family)

My brother Brandon got to drive our 86-year-old grandmother to the convenience store where she buys her daily lottery ticket today. I was jealous. There are five people in my immediate family--my mom, dad, brother, grandmother and me--and we live in four different cities in three different states. It's weird how that happened because, unlike some families I've seen, we like each other.

My favorite way to spend a weekend growing up was at home with my family. Usually we had several soccer games to shuttle around to. If it was summertime, we'd come home and cook out on the converted water heater that served as our grill. If it was the winter, we'd make a big fire and curl up to watch a movie. I was an unusually homey-homebody. Sometimes my friends would call and I would make my mom answer the phone to tell them I couldn't come over to play. Then my mom and I would spend the afternoon working in the garden or walking our dog up to the park to run loose.

Then my brother moved away to college. Then I moved away to college. Then my brother moved some place else for graduate school. Then I moved some place else for graduate school. In the meantime, my parents' marriage fell apart, and my dad moved out. I went home to be with my mom for Christmas breaks and spring breaks and summers. And then I started working, and I didn't have Christmas breaks or spring breaks or summers. My brother and I moved a few more times, but we never moved home. The year I moved from the East Coast to the West Coast he moved from the West Coast to the East Coast. We bought our mom a clock with three faces, one for each time zone our family lived in. She loves that clock. And she hates it. I hate it too.

My dad was always telling Brandon and me to make our world big. This was good and important advice, and both our parents encouraged us to act on it. Without it, I might not have gone to school in Boston. I would never have met Tiffany. My career path would have led somewhere entirely different. Who knows how much of my life would be the same if I'd stayed right where I was.

But being a long-distance family is hard. I want to take my mom to lunch without having to get on a plane. Hang out with my brother without scheduling it three months in advance. See my dad without needing an airport and a two-hour drive. Or take my grandmother to buy her lottery ticket more than once a year. So, while I am grateful for the opportunities I've had to make my world big, I spend an inordinate amount of time wondering how and when I'll ever be able to make it small again.