Hello Internets! We are home. 

We headed back from Victoria yesterday, and let me tell you it is so much nicer making the trip back now that we are driving home along a highway, rather than through the clogged arteries of a major city.

For about 24 hours, every single one of my sisters was in the same place at the same time. There was this overwhelming crush of talking and laughter and ten outstretched arms trying to steal little Olive. They played with her and danced with her, lay on the bed and sang lullabies to get her to sleep; They each have their own way of interacting with her and talking to her, honestly seeing her in their arms, and seeing how much they all adore her, it is the sweetest thing in the world.

Every time I drive away from one of these family gatherings, I wear their collective influence for weeks. I hear myself speak like them, move like them. I feel their mannerisms and their energy linger around me like subtle whiffs of perfume. It’s sort of reassuring, this delayed goodbye, but it also makes their absence hit home that much harder.

It’s so quiet. 

I think I am going to have to start playing the lottery. Me, a staunch anti-gambling lady, compromising her principles because winning mega millions of dollars is the only way I will ever be able to fulfill my dream of having every one of my family members living in the same city as us. I would offer each and every one of them a one-hundred-thousand dollar signing bonus if they would promise to live wherever I did.

I’d buy them houses and find them work  they loved, and we’d have a dining room table big enough to fit every single one of them.

And then I wouldn’t have to wear their words like cloaks around my shoulders.

And then I wouldn’t have to say goodbye.