It more or less just hit me this evening that my family left. On the upside, this means I can more fully empathize with my sister, who was hit with that waaay before they actually did leave.

And excuse me for going on about this, by the way. I get melodramatic every once in a while.

Being unaffected by this was something of a relief. Realizing that I was unaffected, I mean – having my family suddenly up and go to another continent for twelve months stirred up little additional emotion. In my defense, I didn’t really see them anyway. School and such. Bit of a distance between Chicago and home; I dealt with the separation itself without issue, and distance was arbitrary. Kinda.

My sister and I went to the Thanksgiving… gathering, I guess, at my dad’s family’s… place. Locale. Cousinfest and lots of sleep. Good to see everyone, as always. My (nuclear) family called in a couple times (o the wonders of Skype). Worked out well. Got there on Wednesday, stayed until early Saturday evening.

Heh, then we dropped off the dog at what is usually considered ‘Home’. There’s another family there at the moment, taking care of the place. It was that moment – walking through the house and seeing someone else’s life pasted over the top of ours – that I actually realized they were gone.

And they’ll be back, of course. We talk daily, in one medium or another. I feel a little silly for being thrown so much by seeing someone else’s toaster oven on the counter. Not so much for the picture frames boxed up and stored away – that one is more excusable, I think.

The piano was sitting in the quiet, back in the parlor. The clip above was recorded on my trusty Nokia somethingorother that’s never really liked making phone calls. (I consider this a reasonable excuse for the lack of audio quality.) … I miss that piano. Out of tune and everything. I swear, if they put ivories on it to replace the ones bit off…

I kinda want to end this with a list of things I’m thankful for, in typical Thanksgivingblog fashion. That’d fortunately be both typical and late, so I’ll save you the time. … Because yes, I only write what I’m sure will be terribly interesting. >_>

Anyway. Happy Thanksgiving.

(I’m thankful for my family.)