My intense disliking of road trips began when I was eleven years old, when I woke in the morning on the floor of an empty yellow room—no longer my empty yellow room—and walked downstairs through the empty house, through the empty foyer, and into our van, completely filled to the brim with boxes and bags and coolers.

I was moving. My childhood home was gone forever. As I sat, peering out the window at the fleeting countryside that made up the rolling farmland of southeastern Wisconsin, I knew that I would never see my home again.

And so we sat. The ride was an agony for an overactive child. I’ve never had the ability to sit perfectly still; I always bounce my legs, swipe through the air with my fingers, play with my hair. I felt like a bird in a cage, stuffed haphazardly into circus cart, and completely surrounded by the remnants of my old life.

It was not a fun day.

The ride lasted for nine hours. When we finally arrived in Tennessee, I still couldn’t weep for joy, even as my anxious feet touched the solid orange clay that made up the lowlands by the Mississippi. I could never feel joy. My life was still up north. My family was still up north.

We tried to go up to visit my family as often as possible. Each one was thoroughly planned beforehand, and the van was packed with enough supplies to last us a week. Early in the morning, before the sun would rise, the family would get up and throw ourselves in the car. We’d drive the whole day through, stopping only for gas. Time seemed to slow down as my siblings and I watched movie after movie, finishing a book, starting another, and trying to sleep. Most of the rides I would be stuck in a sideways, cramped world, stuck in a haze between slumber and consciousness, functioning just enough to know that I was uncomfortable and annoyed with the bickering of my brother and sister in the background.

The road trips were expensive and long, as we could never go up and see only one part of the family at a time. When we were up north, our family seemed to have an uncanny ability to sense our presence; we were dragged all over the Midwest each time we made it up there.

Even with the hectic “duty” of seeing everyone, the individual visits never lasting more than two days, I loved being back up in my home. I loved the cool, clear air; I loved the lack of humidity; I loved the snow. The winters down south were horrible. The leaves would brown without a fantastic display of color and wilt to the ground. The trees would turn a horrible shade of black. The grass would brown. The sky was gray. If we were lucky enough for snow to fall, it was preceded by a horrible ice storm that shut down the power and dragged trees down with it. It was dangerous to even go outside.

I feel whole again once I’m up north. Wherever we go, I’m surrounded by people my own age. I’m lucky that way. My siblings, cousins and I are all around the same age. We’re so excited to see each other. We’d roam around outside, goof around inside, take care of the little ones, and do basically everything we could fit in to a two-day span while the adults talked.

The trips never felt long once they ended. We’d be back down south before we knew it. I’d feel like I’d been ripped away from home, my heart torn from my chest, and plopped back into the world of “y’all” ‘s and “bless your heart” ‘s.

And then we moved even farther away--eighteen hours away. We were transferred to Georgia. Now, I’m even farther away from my family. We’re stuck here. The visits up north are less frequent. We make it up about once a year, on Thanksgiving.

So many people take their families for granted. They complain about having to go see their grandparents or cousins; they complain about the hour-long drive it takes to see aunts and uncles or siblings in college. I always cringe when people complain.

I envy everyone down here. Because of the way things are panning out, I can’t visit my family this year. I won’t have seen them for more than twelve months.

I miss my family with a passion. It’s hard to be apart for so long. People are busy. We don’t get to talk. Can you imagine how surprisingly difficult it is to be nervous to see your own family? That’s how I get now. The nervousness of seeing people from school after summer vacation is intensified. Summer vacation is two months long. I don’t see my family for six times that.

It’s amazing how much things change when you’re not there.

I hope you are going to see your family for Thanksgiving. I hope you take the time to appreciate your ability to see them; appreciate your closeness, both in space and relationship; appreciate your lives with each other and the impacts you’ve had in each others lives. Please appreciate it. There are always people sitting at home who don’t have that option.