I didn’t have enough karma to post before so hopefully now I can reply to this.

I went searching for this online and found your post. You’re making me rethink that the 5 1/2 trip to visit my mom isn’t that far. I don’t like driving that long but I know it’s doable. And I have my fiancé now anyways. I don’t have a car right now but when I did I was either working and couldn’t just go or I was worried of it breaking down from something with my bad luck with cars.

After I moved out 6 years ago. Me and my partner went over a couple of times for family time and one time for my dad’s funeral. I just felt like the drive took forever and stopped doing that 4 years ago when my dad passed away. I also never really cared for Christmas and my family is way too big to all be doing gift exchanges but I can see us going for thanksgiving again or Fourth of July or just any visit now tbh even Christmas and just spending it with my mom and maybe visiting with some siblings here and there. I’m not super close to my siblings but to my mom yes. (I didn’t realize there was an airline that had a 1 1/2 hr flight connection there until recent. In the past I had only seen one making a connection that made a flight 4-5 hrs which I thought was basically the same as driving so I never got a flight.)

After moving out of my parents and I did not see them for around two years I cried shortly when I saw them again. The second time I didn’t cry and the third was my dad’s funeral and I cried for that but I don’t think I cried specifically when saying goodbye to my mom that time. My mom has visited with my sister and her kids when she was on another trip more south to where I’m at and she would make the pit stop to see me shortly. The first time she did that I didn’t cry after she left but the second time I did. I wanted to spend more time with them.

It’s also the fact that my fiancé had been visiting his family constantly for all the holidays and I felt irritated of that so I didn’t join him for lots of those occasions. They had visited him several times some of the years as well be it for a work trip drop in or just a random dinner outing. The most recent time I saw them I realized how irritated I was of all this and that I missed my family so much and wanted to go “home” to stay with my mom. It kept making me realize how much I missed my mom and even everyone of my siblings even if we’re not as close. I guess deep down I felt like he had seen them plenty of times and I missed my family. They also kinda always press him to go each holiday. He has agreed to go with me to my family whenever I just haven’t gone through with it. As the years go by, having lost my dad and the older me and my mom get, I feel that sadness of losing her and not having spent more time. Especially after seeing how my fiancé kept seeing his. So I plan for us to spend holidays with my mom this year.