Going to Texas

Normally I would be really excited to get to go to Texas.  Except for my parents, siblings, and one cousin, all of may family is in Texas.  This is why I am going tomorrow, family.  Unfortunately it is not a fun family get together, one of my favorite uncles has died.  Uncle Charlie is my mother's brother.  He is (was) the father to one of my closest cousins, Tammy.  At least we were close as kids and teenagers.  Life has a way of separating you as you grow up and have families of your own.  We've also never lived closer than a three hour drive to each other.  Now we basically IM on Facebook, which is more than we had before Facebook.  I hope tomorrow we can reconnect on a more personal level and actually start at least talking a little more often.  After all, I have free long distance on my cell phone, so it won't cost anything. 

We both have girls who will graduate from high school this year and she has a daughter who will be 21 in a few months.  She will be an empty nester and all I'll have left at home is my 7 year-old.  We will have to make some time together.  She's only an hour away from Dallas or Wichita Falls and it's only 2 or 3 hours for me to get to one or the other.  We may need a girl's weekend sometime soon.

While I look forward to seeing all my family who will be there, I do look forward to seeing her more.  She was my "cool, older" cousin.  Only about 18 months older, but that meant she could drive before me.  Now I'll just make sure she knows that she's still the older one. 

I hate that funerals are the only times we seem to get together anymore.  We don't even get together for weddings.  None of our children have ever really met.  Our granny would be so disappointed in us for that.  We have a lot of cousins who are the same age as our parents and we grew up with their kids.  They were more like first cousins to us than our first cousins were.  All of my cousins who are my age, I haven't seen their kids since they were babies, if at all, and now they are, for the most part, in their teens and some even have kids of their own.  I think I have the youngest one, and I'm one of the older ones.  (Ouch!)

Well, I've rambled enough.  I've got to get the house cleaned and the kid's ready for school for tomorrow.  It will be a long day, but I'm going home and then coming back home all in one day.