Unit

Sometimes I miss my family with my whole soul and an intensity that surprises even me.  I am blessed beyond measure to be surrounded by the people I am, here at college.  I have a home team.  I have someone to go to dinner with.  Someone who will run with me to the Creamery for some completely nonessential peanut butter cups for cookies.  I have someone who will stay up and talk through this messy heart of mine.

But I don't have anyone who will talk with me for hours about the recipe we read in the book and the perfect idea about pain not being a consolation prize, but instead the actually end goal.  I don't have anyone I can turn to on a Saturday morning after contemplating running and whine, "I need some attention."  I don't have anyone who tells me they need a favor with that smile that tells me it requires some muscle and better work shoes than I probably even own.

I miss them on Saturday mornings when I know even if I make an omelet, it won't be as  good, and my pancakes will be dismal on the plate and the smoothie will taste a little bit off.  I miss them on Saturday afternoons when we would be wrapping up our chores, put on a football game no one actually watched, and deciding where we wanted to go do dinner.  I miss them on an average, unassuming Tuesday when I would walk down the stairs, help set the table, and take a break to talk about literacy techniques, new implications of healthcare, and probably too much dialogue about my upcoming school assignments.

Those people?  They are my people.  We are a smaller family than most, yet I don't know of a family that is as close as ours.  We are a unit, and we are together.

And for that I am so grateful.