Family relationships

Life is so full of people and events. Sometimes I feel guilty because I don't talk to my children every day or every week or sometimes much longer. I don't talk to my father frequently, and didn't call my mother often enough when she was alive. I should call my siblings more often.I purpose to be more communicative, then I fail. I tend to live in the moment, interacting with the people right here right now. I love getting phone calls from my children, although texting and email is great, too. Sometimes there's not much to say. I want to believe, and I think it is true, that we know our family is there for us, we occasionally get together, and we love each other. I often wish we were a closer knit group, but I have been inside other families in the course of my work and the ones that are "close" are also the ones where everyone is in everyone else's business trying to tell each other what to do all the time.

My mother was always involved in doing something that she found interesting, like sewing and directing a choir and singing in Sweet Adelines. She was always there, and interested for the most part, but in a detached sort of way. When I started having children, and especially when I started homeschooling, I remember her saying "What are you doing for you?" I loved being around and with my children, and sewed and quilted and baked, etc, and rarely did anything away from them. But somehow that wasn't healthy either, and probably contributed to my emotional instability.

I remember making a conscious decision that I didn't want to be detached like my parents, and wanted our family to be close. But what is close? Is it living on the same block or in the same town and seeing each other every day even when everyone is grown up? Is it being friends on facebook and keeping up with the basics? Is it knowing that no matter where you live, Mom is just a phone call away? Is it realizing that people grow and change and are imperfect but they are still family?

These are things I ponder.