I MADE IT!

So the flights were smooth and I made it home alive! The trip with my mom was fun – seeing her around her family really gives me so much insight into who she is and what she has come from. I can’t say that I really understand it, but at least now I am starting to see why she and I don’t see exactly eye to eye on a lot of things. Getting to know her side of the family has made me much more sympathetic toward what my mom must have endured as a child. Good example: My grandpa (her dad) was insisting that the reason I have such “strange” ideas about the world is because I went to college. Wow. I could go on, but I’m sure you get the gist of what I’m saying. Family reunions are funny little things.

So, I am home. I am thankful I went, even though I was certain I was going to plummet to the Earth in a flaming jet plane (damn my overactive imagination). I got to reconnect with my cousins, whom I grew up with and haven’t seen in way too long (see picture) and see some aunts and uncles that I haven’t seen in, god, close to ten or fifteen years. And, as a bonus, I have collected enough material in these past three days to quite possibly fill an entire novel. Time to start writing, no?