On Changes

The arboretum at the University of Michigan is what inspired Robert Frost to write his poem The Road Less Taken. 

.....For some reason my sister's graduation hit me harder than my own. I think it's for a few reasons:  First deals with the most important thing in my life, my family.  Now with two of us in college, our family is no longer the same it's always been for twenty years.  Even before, I could always drive home and the family dynamic would be normal.  Now 2/5th of us are Ann Arbor residents.  So weird.  My family has always been a close and caring family so I think not being right next to each together is going to bring some tears and heart break.  For pete sake's, I feel like such a bad sister for abandoning Lauren in her high school years! It's not fair that I got my whole family's attention and support while going through high school where she only has my parents on a day to day basis.


.....This also means changes with my relationships with my parents.  I no longer need their permission, but I do like to hear their thoughts.  Where does the balance come along?

......Then this spring, I graduate college and move off into the real world taking me even further (possible states) away from my family.  I will  no longer be exlusively apart of their family, but of my own little family and an additional family. 


.....I've also seen changes in my extended family.  I remember asking my dad when I was younger how families switch.  Like when you're younger and you meet with all of your cousins and uncle and aunts for holidays then as your family grows up you see them less and start getting together with only your siblings and their children.  How does this happen exactly and why?? I feel that it is unfair to all of my little cousins who wont get the same experience I had.  And I find that as this transition within in my family happens, I've been becoming more and more involved with Mike's family.  Maybe you "drop" your extended family and pick up another family? 


.....Knowing I only have a year left of "childhood" I'm going through a sort of wondering/mouring. My last football and hockey seasons await me.  In one year, I wont be able to see my family and closest friends with the ease that I do now.  I am worried about my friendships with my closest friends as they too go on different life paths.  There are some people from college I wont ever see again.  I'm going to miss so many things that go along with that like seeing Mike's Dad's new chickens or doing crafting with Lauren. I will be financially independent and officially an adult with worries about marriage, families, money, houses, children and graduate school.  It is really weird to think I literally have one year left. 


.....I get excited at the prospect of buying furniture and doing decorating.  My old shopping haunts consisted of the likes of American Eagle and Forever 21.  Now I am planning visits to Pier One Imports and Ikea? When I was younger, I never thought I would be interested in "boring furniture". 


.....With all the change coming my way, I often think of the quote from Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken:...."Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference".  As I will be an adult, I hope that I always take this road even if it's less glamourized, harder and more difficult to see...and I especially hope that I know where to find that road in the first place. 

*Picture taken from google