Now I Get It

As most of you know, Linda and I never had children. We made this decision before we got married for various reasons including because we knew if we had kids we would have to be responsible adults and we weren't ready for that commitment, and because we didn't want any. It is a decision we have never regretted.

We have been lucky enough to have nieces and a nephew that we were able to spoil and enjoy watching them grow up and of course all of our friends have had kids so we were able to be a part of their kids lives too. This was the best of options. We could get a kid fix and then hand them back to their parents when things got messy, shall we say.

This summer and early fall we finally had the chance to get away together, which I have written about earlier, and we got to spend some time with our nieces and nephew's kids, along with them of course. It was wonderful to reconnect, and in some cases, finally connect with them.

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(I will apologize for not having better pictures of them, or even recent pictures of Abby on the far right, I am not very good at taking pictures when the chance comes up or centering people in them.)

Anyway, back to my story.

Over they recent years, since our friends have started to have grandchildren, I have been baffled as to why they want to continue to live in the cold and snow, or desperately large cities, now that they are retired just to be near their grandkids. I could not understand this what with the improvements in air travel and video conferencing.

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Since we had the chance to see the kids, the dogs, and of course, the kids - kids, this year I now understand why they stay. This past week I found myself missing them. While they are not our kids or grandkids, we think of them in that way, and have for their whole lives.

I mentioned to Linda that it sucks that we aren't closer to them so that we could just drive over and spend a day or two with them. We loved playing with the kids and the dogs and thought they were a riot and fun and we just wanted to hug them all day. They made us laugh, proud, and we found them to be surprisingly interesting to be around. I say that with no disrespect, I just mean we were surprised at how much we loved being around them.

I now can add jealousy to my list of things I need to work on as I try to improve as a human. Will we move away from the desert in order to be closer? Not very likely as we love it here and truth be told we still aren't quite ready to grow up and be responsible just yet. It is still all about us, I am embarrassed to say.

As for Emily and Chris, Melissa and Dom, Jennifer and Eddy, and James and Madison, along with Jacob, Mia, Dom Jr., Leo, Abby, soon to be George, and of course, their four legged families, we love you and miss you and hope you will someday be able to hop on a plane and come see us here in the desert. Until then keep sending pictures and maybe I'll be able to figure out how to use the camera on the computer so we can video chat. No, I will never figure out how to use the phone.