It is my dad’s birthday tomorrow. I have had a card ready to send to him for almost a week, and I keep forgetting it at home because I am apparently awesome. (I hope you sense the sarcasm there). There is no excuse for this, so I won’t make one.

I don’t talk to my dad a lot, at least by the standards of most of the people I know. Not because we don’t get along – we get along well, especially now that I’m an adult. ;-) It’s more that neither of us are really phone people. I talk to my mom on the phone once every couple of weeks, and that’s about it. I think of the phone as a utilitarian thing…if I don’t need something or have something specific to share I don’t usually call. Not because I don’t want to keep in touch or don’t care. It’s more that I feel like I don’t really have anything to say (And yet I have a blog. The irony is not lost.). I love my dad a lot. He is a typical Northern Minnesotan of Scandinavian heritage…he doesn’t express his emotions much (unless he’s really mad about something). I, on the other hand, usually express enough emotion for the whole family. But for some reason it’s hard to tell him how much I care.

I miss my parents a lot when I don’t get to go home to visit them. Ryan and I haven’t been home since the beginning of March, and I can tell. I get more weepy at cute family stuff (on TV, the internet, movies – whatever), and I get a really strong urge to listen to nothing but country music. It’s weird, because I haven’t lived at home since I left for college, almost 10 years ago, and I was never one to go home every weekend (I couldn’t afford the drive even if I wanted to). When I lived in Delaware for almost a year I only got home once. So it’s not like I’m not used to not being there. But the way I start feeling after a couple months is the reason that I won’t move far away.

I’m going to visit my mom’s parents at the end of this month. It won’t be going home, but it will be close (I love going to see them). And I’ll hopefully get to see my dad and his side of the family the next weekend when we celebrate 4th of July. I don’t know where we’ll be, but we’ll be together.

I know most of you that read are relatives, and so I know that you are still close to your parents. But for the rest of you, are you so lucky?