holidays

 You can always depend on me to write during the holidays. 

This year's "discovery" was how strange it was to meet my siblings as adults. 

We spent SOOOOO much time together as children, but then when we left, we really left. At least I did. 

I guess my older brother stuck around, but he got married and had kids immediately. I moved three hours away. My younger brother joined the military. That left my little sister still at home. 

I go back for the holidays. I see people I recognize but I'm not sure I know them. 

The older seems to have changed religions since last I knew, but I didn't ask. 

The younger brother is married, has dogs, and isn't active military any more. Seems I missed an entire chapter of that story.

The youngest is fifteen and now she is quiet and hyper aware of personal space. Being a new development, I don't know if these changes are a result of age, personality, or anxiety. 

And there I am, married, only pseudo-religious, turning 30, and noticing how much we have all changed. Do I know myself any more than I know them?

I wonder if they feel the same. Or maybe they know each other better than I know them. 

I wonder if it will always be like this. Will we get to know each other again, or is this how we are? 

Similar memories. Different lives. 

Friends in memory. Yet acquaintances at Christmas?

But maybe I am being poetically dramatic. 

We keep up at through messaging apps and phone calls, but I am not sure what the "appropriate" connection is. We were all we knew as kids, but how well should I know them now?





2024 update: I have a version of the image above as a tattoo

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