On Distance {five minute friday}

I am joining with Gypsymama for a five minute un-edited free-write.

On Distance...

As Americans, distance does not phase us.  Traveling to Spain years ago I realized that it was not unusual for a Spaniard, who lives in a country roughly the size of Texas,  never to have traveled even to the coast of their own gorgeous land.  

For me, a wide-open-plains kind of Mid-westerner, driving three hours to play a basketball game and home again the same day was normal.  Even driving cross country in two-or-three days is not a huge deal for most of us.

Distance is part of the fiber of my adult life.  Since I left home for college, three hours away, I have progressively moved farther and farther from where I grew up.  My husband and I had to learn to be one another's entire family.  Friendships became essential parts of each new city we inhabited because without them, we were utterly alone.  

Still there is a beauty to living so far away from those you love the most.  Each visit in person is distilled into the most important details of life - skip the small talk, let's get to the soul talk, my favorite kind.