Back from outerspace...
One of the perks working for a State school is that I get almost two weeks off for Christmas and New Years. I took two days of vacation in order to make it the full two weeks and we spent one week with the in-laws and one week with my parents traveling to the Grand Canyon and back. While at times these holiday interactions with family have been stressful and unpleasant in the past this time around it was very pleasant. Even the travel with my parents, which at times got tedious due to nothing more than being in such close proximity for so long, was relaxing and refreshing. Now I find that I miss those two weeks a lot and I realize how much fun it was. It's a little hard to come back to Dallas while everyone else is in Waco and Austin. I somehow feel alone and seperated, perhaps thats what I've been feeling for awhile and didn't understand it until I had experienced being back amongst family and friends.
It really is a shame, we don't have any friends or family (except my wife's Grandmother) that live close by us. Even the friends that I've made in Dallas all live in the far flung suburbs and getting together with them is typically difficult and at the very least demands someone driving through the traffic...which I don't like and don't want to subject others to either. Even at church everyone is older than us and we haven't really made and serious friendships there, while we do have friends...no one is a "good" friend, like the kind you'd have over and stuff.
Maybe we need to be more proactive, I know that's something I've constantly struggled with. I'm a self-professed lazy person, I always have been ever since I can remember. I don't know why either...both my parents are hard working people...but I guess that's it...I work hard, but I'm not very proactive and neither are they, at least that I recall...not that I'm going to blame my parents for anything. But I guess I've gotten off my initial train of thought.