today is my Daddy's Birthday

One of the problems with living in Utah is you miss birthdays. Today is my father's birthday, as well as Father's Day. I guess when my grandmother had a son it probably didn't occur to her that if he ever had children he would always have to share his birthday weekend with Father's Day. Kind of a bummer.

Anyway. I just called and they are headed to the lake and my stepmother's family all came over last night for his birthday. This means that my father had a birthday party without me there and will have a Father's Day/birthday event today without me there. It doesn't really matter that I'm not there because in the grand scheme of things, the only person who matters on a birthday is the person to whom the birthday belongs. But it's the weirdest sensation not being there.

When you live far away you really don't exist. It's kind of interesting to be the person who everyone remembers is related but not around. In fact, it's unclear when you live far away that you are even remembered. In my life I will pay for this. When you are the child who lives far away you don't do any of the obligatory things like help out with moves and new furniture and attending baby showers and birthday parties and fourth of July picnics. Eventually, because you haven't done the obligatory things, you start to be resented as the child who never does anything while the children who live nearby are the heroes. Even though technically I am an only child, I have stepsiblings on one side and I have many homebound cousins on the other so I will and do get compared. And then, finally, in your adult life, you are the one who gets discussed as never being around and thus having let everyone down.

We have already been getting the language of having let people down. When we lost the baby a number of people said to us, if you had been home or it's so hard with you in Utah. (kind of ironic, as the loss of a baby is a tragedy for the people who lose the baby and really not so much for the people who live somewhere else but the entitlement to cry extends to all those people and you end up having to take care of them...for another post when I am feeling more up to it) We have been advised to find work in New York so we can move home. Never mind that we love it here. Never mind that we feel very happy here. Never mind that the only person I really need around all the time is my husband and vice versa for him so we could really live in Timbuktu and it would be fine with us. This is why so many people can attend high school reunions. They all live home to avoid being the child who lets everyone down and so they're nearby when the high school has a reunion. But I digress.

Is it selfish to live far away? Is it selfish to make a choice for one's own reasons, whatever they are, to live more than drive's distance from familiy?