Sometimes I think back to how perfect life was. We all got along so well. Don’t get me wrong we were still family, and trust me family is not easy but still it all just felt right. Some days I look at the many photo albums my mom has and realize that I and my entire family (which is pretty huge) spent tons of time together. TONS. Picture after picture, date after date, it seemed as if we all lived in one big house and never once parted, which is completely untrue because we all lived in different states, even different countries. Some resided here in Texas, some in California, some in Mexico, and some well, let’s just say my family scattered across the globe. And yet so far away we all continued to stay close by one another, all living in our own family sized world. As I look at the pictures I remember how much fun it was to be a family, I remember all the vacations and celebrations. But mostly I remember how different we are now.

Frank was practically the ring leader in our family. Planning most of the family get togethers. He was my best friend. When I think of my past family I picture a world inside a world, where we all revolved around Frank. I am not saying that in a bad way. It’s just that he was what kept our family together. When he died our perfect little world, our hidden kingdom, burst in flames and we all separated, running away from the so heavily packed flames, all going in different directions. Still to this day I don’t have a clue where the rest of my family is. All I know is that once we made way back to earth, back to reality each of us formed our own separate world, cut off from not the world itself but from each other.

Now we only meet once in a while. And with every meeting I hear those strange words over and over, time and time again, “Wow you got so big” or “You were just a little girl last time I saw you” and I just feel like saying “Yes I think its called growing, it’s an odd new disease, very contagious.” Those words “you’ve grown” are weird to me for I only hear them from people who hardly know me; people who haven’t seem me in a long time.

Now I can’t speak for the rest of my family, but I know why I shut myself in this little tiny world. I am scared. Yes I admit it, I am scared. Scared that if I let myself get attached to someone as much as I got attached to Frank, I will get hurt. I think that if I just distance myself from family then if anything bad happens to them it will not be as hard on me. How selfish is that. I hide so when someone I love gets hurt it won’t be hard on ME.

Well turns out my plan didn’t work. Recently I realized that no matter where you go, no matter what you do, pain will always find you. You can run from it, and you can defiantly hide from it, but believe me, it will always find you.