Family

A common getting to know you question people ask when you're travelling is, "Do you have any brothers or sisters?" And my response is that no, not only am I an only child, im a lonely child, as I do not have any brothers or sisters, I do not have a single cousin either. That's right, enter my family and welcome to the hen house. My grandmother had three girls and out of three girls only one girl was born. My uncle has been the only male brave enough to handle us all and has been around since I started having memories. It's easy to see though how my family could have been very overprotective over the years, and why over my teens and 20s I sometimes got overwhelmed and shut them out. 

It was the worry about them being overprotective and the guilt that I may be disappointing them by not having the typical all American girl lifestyle, that prevented from regularly keeping in contact with them. I had already worked myself up that they disapproved of my nomad life and that I did not want to talk to anyone unsupportive. And like most people my age and younger, it turns out I had underestimated them. Yesterday for the first time in a long time I finally reached reached out to them and thanks to modern technology we did it via video chat. I waited for the judgements to roll in, and instead all I got was love and support. After all this time and all of my concerns about them, it turned out that all I needed to do to make them happy was for them to know that I was happy. 

Now that's not very hard at all is it?