Leave Your Father and Mother and Cling to Your Husband

At various times I think about the idea of leaving your mother and father and clinging to your husband. I think this is an area where our age difference comes into play. I found it almost impossible at the thought of not being with my family at Christmas since I have never missed a year. But this is a problem because that would mean I am never willing to go to Joel's family's house at Christmas. And I sometimes leave Joel since he has to stay home due to work, to go to visit my family since they are only 2 hours away. But more and more I am realizing that I am married now and that it does mean that things are changing now. My older sister Steph is realizing this now as well since she lives 12 hours away and has a baby. This was the first year that she was unable to make it home for Christmas. I think it is a sad time for all of us since we are a close family to go through this because it is definitely a transitioning time. Lindsay is about to graduate college this May, and so everyone is going through big changes. It makes it a little harder since we have a 12 year old sister Tori who is home and wanting us to be able to visit and be home like normal. More and more I am understanding that things do change, and that this is part of growing up. And how fast the time went! I think in general, I will always see members of my family often since we are so close and really want to stay in contact. But there will definitely be changes over the next years to come too. I saw how it was for Joel to miss out on visiting his family this Christmas, and it made me realize that we will definitely see his family on some Christmases too. It is not always easy to leave your family and make your own family, but it is part of life. Luckily we both love both of our families very much and we want to be able to see them often and have them be able to get to meet the new members of our family every time we have children. We will just have to take things one holiday at a time and it will all get worked out.