Many of you know that my family and I have been separated for 7+ years. For those of you who don’t know, my dad works for AT&T; he was offered a really good promotion to Charleston, South Carolina, from Atlanta/Dallas, Georgia in 2012. Of course, after a lot of talking and thinking, he decided to take it and we moved to Charleston.

    From a young age, I dealt with distance in all kinds of relationships. With family, my oldest cousin moved to Hawaii before I turned 10, another cousin that is exactly a month older than me moved between Georgia and Alabama, my dad’s side of the family has always lived in Alabama. From a young age, I was used to spending a lot of time traveling to see my family and there are so many memories. 

    I have always been asked, “how do you do it? Is it easy? Does it get any easier? What do you do with your niece(s)/nephew(s) and little cousins?” How do I do it? Good question, I won’t sugarcoat it and say that it’s fun or that I enjoy it. I don’t, because the one thing that you always see and think about it is the fact that you constantly see things happening back home that you want to be there for, but aren’t. The one thing that I always went back to was this, there will be a day where we are all together again and making memories like a normal family, but right now this is our normal. Is it easy? Does it get any easier? It’s not easy, because there are so many milestones that your family members will hit that you can’t be there for.  For example, last December, my sister had my niece, and throughout her whole pregnancy, she knew that she could call me, but when I saw her right before, as, and after she had Aubrey, it shocked me to think that I wasn’t there to help my sister with the stuff that a sister should be when their sister is pregnant and right after she had the baby. It gets easier when you are with your people, but ultimately, you watch them grow up over things like Facebook, photo sharing apps, and text. The hardest part is milestones and things happening at home that you can’t be there. What do you do with your niece(s)/nephew(s) and little cousins? Simply put, I go on Facebook, see pictures of them, call and text them when we can, watch them grow up, and always take pictures when I’m home because you never know when the next time you will see someone again. I grew up cherishing pictures and memories over anything materialistic. At the end of the day, when everything has calmed down and everything is taken away from you, all you have is the quiet and the memories. No matter what happens, make the memories and cherish them always because there will be a day when that’s all you have left of someone. 

    Distance between anyone in life isn’t easy, but as long as you push through everything, you will make it work. Always have the mentality that this distance is only for a short time.

Thanks for joining me! For many of you, you read along with the same blog from a few years ago. However, that one just got away from me and with school, extracurricular activities, and family, it just never actually developed into what I wanted it to. So here we are again, redoing it! Come along for the journey; you never know what you’ll find!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton