4,000 miles

Sometimes, if I let myself think about it, I start to panic about the fact that my parents, sister, and her family are 4,000 miles away. You would think that after living here for almost 14 years that I would have grown used to that fact and that it wouldn't bother me. Ha. I guess this is where life is funny. It's more weird than funny, more complicated than amusingly simple, and there seems to be more conflicted feelings than I ever thought possible. In this instance with me living so far away from home, life is funny on many different levels. First, because I could hardly leave the house when I was 15/16 for fear of panic attacks. I now live part of continent and an ocean away from that house. Second, because I never thought I would not live by my sister. We used to have this dream that when we were older we would start a business together. It was going to be a quaint coffee shop (we both LOVE coffee) and we were going to sell our art. Admittedly these plans were formed before I was an adult. My sister is 7 years older than me, but despite that we have always been very close. Third, (and this is the funniest) I never wanted to even visit America. In college, I would sit in a sociology class, where all my fellow students talked of wanting to visit the States, and I just wanted to go to Africa or Russia. (Strangely now none of those places are at the top of my places-to-visit list.) And now America is the place I call home.
Life is complicated because I can desperately miss my family in England, the physical country and the culture yet I love living here, love the friends I have made, and the family I married into that I now call my own. But then again, I have these yearnings to see my boys in school uniform going to school, or to spy a red post box nestled in a wall (like the little one by my parents house), or hear the peal of church bells on a Sunday morning.
Most tragically it seems (in my head at least) I think about the time I am missing with them all. The days fly by, the months and years pass quickly. My children grow and change, and all the while my parents miss out on all the milestones and significant moments. They miss the day to day comings and goings that they get to witness and partake in with my sister and her family. when I think like this, I start to feel a weight crushing down on me. I feel suffocated. And the worse thought of all crosses my mind....that when they are gone, and I am old, I will feel like I wasted all this time apart from them. There. That's the conflict. Clearly, I am not wasting time. But I am terrified that I will never get this time back. The time when the boys were 2 and 4. Or 3 and 5. When Kyler was born, or when JP first played T-ball. When Charlie went to kindergarten and all the future events that we have yet to experience. It's so permanent. And of course it is. I can't turn time back. I can't relive everything but relive it with my parents and sister living down the road.
So, I will try to not to think too hard, miss them all too much, or speculate on future situations and their possible corresponding feelings. Right.....