To Everything . . . Turn, Turn, Turn

I missed my brother this morning. I was just thinking about something that had happened yesterday and my plans for the upcoming day and all of a sudden, I started to miss him. I missed that he was one of the few people in Provo that I didn't have to pretend to be something other than what I am--someone I could talk to about all my problems and feelings, and call when I wasn't feeling my best. He has always been able to understand me, and can tell, seemingly unconsciously, when I need a pick-me-up.

But for the next sixteen or so months, he is far away, in a different country, my only access to him a weekly e-mail, a few silly letters, and a phone call two times a year.

It's strange, don't you think, how quickly someone comes into our lives and how, just as quickly, they can leave it? Life is an endless merry-go-round of friends and family, getting on and getting off, with only one thing staying the same--you. Or maybe it is more like gears, how their teeth interconnect, but only for a short while. Life takes us all in new directions, and it's hard when we are separated from someone we have grown to love, depend upon, or are just familiar with. I know that I will sometimes be the one to leave; when I graduate this December, I'm leaving behind something that I feel has just barely become comfortable to me and going out into another new unknown.

I know my brother isn't out of my life for good, he is family after all and you can't really get rid of family (no matter how hard you try ;) ). But things change, fall apart and grow together, like the ebb and flow of the ocean. Or the turning of the gears.