Journal Entry
July 13, 2023
It’s my dad’s birthday week. A big one too. And I am not able to celebrate it with him. No he isn’t dead or anything like that. He, like the rest of my family, live several hours away. On top of this I found out some really impactful news that affects my family but they are all hours away. I feel like you all may need a back story for this. I am the oldest of several children. I have been and always will be the Guinea pig child. Because of this my ‘first’s are also my parents. I was the first to have a serious relationship. I was the first gen college student.I was and still am the first and only child to move out of my parents house (despite only a five year age difference between me and my youngest sibling). I not only moved out but I flew far away and intend on keeping it that way.
But sometimes, in the mist of my busy and wonderfully fulfilling life, I feel guilty. I feel guilty that I am so far away and that I miss so many things with my family. Yes I know everyone is happy for me and glad that I have ‘spread my wings and found my own nest’ but I’m still feeling guilty. My future children will not have the close relationship with my side of the family as I would wish them to have. The aunts that they are closet to will not be their biological ones but rather my best friends that I found all on my own.
I will not be there when/if something happens to my family members while on a fire call (we are all firefighters and have been for years). I will be the one who gets a phone call randomly to get some life altering news. Growing up I watch my cousins all slowly disappear out of my grandmothers life and how much it broke her. I watched them all have babies that are now double digits and she has only met once or twice despite countless attempts. I promised myself I would never do that to her, that she would know her great grand babies just as well as she knew me growing up. But here I am, several long hours away from her. ‘
No one talks about this guilt. No one talks about the mixed feelings you have when you look at your life and love everything about it but hate that your family is so far away
