Despite what you might guess, I actually love my family a lot and get along well with them. I've been incredibly fortunate in the family I was born into; they are loving supportive people who are always there for me. The distance isn't because I don't want to be near them (in fact every time I move somewhere else I first question how I could move closer to some of them) but we're all spread out anyway, so there's no way to get close to the whole family at once, and since I can't be near all of them I tend to just move where life takes me so... distance.
Physical distance at least, but we manage to take up where we last left off as though no time has passed whenever we get together. We're still very close. Close enough that periodically, throughout the year, I miss them and wish that we were all in one place.
Yet for some reason autumn sharpens this wish to an almost painful desire. Why autumn? What does the changing of the leaves and the chilling of the breeze have to do with me wanting to see my brothers and sister, my parents?
Could it be because the rest of the year is so full of adventure that I don't have as much time to reflect on the long ago times spent with my family? As we all return from summer adventures and the weather cools do we spend more time thinking about the way things were than the way things are? Or perhaps it's because most of my family's birthdays are in autumn. Two brothers and both parents, all born between October and December. Maybe it's because of Thanksgiving and all the traditions that surround it. Or is it because, for a very brief window in time in my childhood, we were all together and would bake pies, drink cider, and play in piles of raked leaves in our yard?
It's probably all of those things.
Whatever the reason is, today, I curl up under a blanket, laptop ready to write, tea at my side, dog curled at my feet, and I raise my steaming mug and say, "To family! May we be together soon."
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