sudden realization

i woke up this morning with the strong feeling of missing my family. this is the longest i have gone without seeing them. and i suppose the first time i have really missed them as much as i do now. i never really missed them alot before, sometimes a bit, but i always saw them every three to six months again for a re-charge and i talked often enough on the phone with them to satisfy my need for connection. but now the phone calls are a bit less and it's been over 8 months since my last re-charge.
perhaps the permance of this new situation is settling in for the first time. this is going to be part of my life for...well, the rest of my life, probably. both my parents have done this as well: moved far away from home, seeing family only once a year or sometimes less, not seeing family for years at a time. i suppose i grew up with the idea that this was normal, so being away from them for months before was not a big deal. but now, it will become more than a few months. i won't see my two youngest sisters grow up. i'll probably even miss a few important events, like graduations and weddings and babies...
not that i didn't know this when i decided to come here. nor does it make me wish to turn around and leave. for one thing, this would be the case no matter where i lived, unless i tried to start a global rotation, moving from sibling to sibling to parents to sibling every so often... 
so, despite the impossibility of getting my whole family in one place permanently and despite my
choice and desire to be here, i still will have days like this sometimes... 
and that's good i suppose.
luuk will just have to work on making those millions so we can afford random trips around the world every 6 weeks.  :)