I am, for the most part, a terrible person to be related to.

My siblings can back this up, more than my parents would. I’m sure part of that is that unconditional love that people have for their spawn, but there’s also a really simple explanation: my parents live in town, about ten minutes drive from me, and my brother and sisters live at scattered points across the country.

I’m actually terrible at long distance relationships of any kind. Jonas is the only person I’ve ever successfully stayed in touch with for any length of time, and we go through pregnancy-length periods without talking over the years. I’m just lucky that he’s gay and can’t resist my handsome features and promises that one day, if he’s persistant, I’ll think about “experimenting.”

Kidding, as far as you know.

I feel bad, though, about the way things turned out. Not so much with Mandy, or with James, though I’d certainly love it if we were all closer, or if I could afford to go visit them both more often. With Kate, though, it’s another story.

I don’t blame myself, or her, for the distance between us. I’m fifteen years older than her, and had moved out of the house by the time she turned two, so there was immdiate space between us on two levels right there. And from then on, it never really got any better; I’m terrible with kids between the ages of post-cute-baby and old enough to drive, which put her in my peripheral zone throughout most of her life. It was only really in the past few years that we’ve gotten close at all — and now that we’re at a point where we can start to relate, she’s across the country (hopefully, for her sake, never to return — I keep reminding her it’s easier to leave home if you do it young and stay gone) at art school.

There was — and probably remains — some resentment on her part about the distance between us. I know (it’s not hard to see) that she and James and she and Mandy are much closer. More like what I imagine that siblings normally are, even cross-country. And the funny, slightly ironic thing there is that she and I are a lot alike — moreso, I think, at the core, than any of the rest of us four. Mandy and I are closer in age and have more history, and James and I have more in common, I think, but deep down, underneath it all, Kate and I are the matching bookends on the shelf full of kids.

I worry about her, for precisely this reason. James and Mandy have always, in almost all areas, learned their lessons more quickly than me (James’ history with women is almost identical to mine, so he loses some points there — dude, if you’re reading this, Rawlins is the one you don’t want to let get away, I think!). And I haven’t seen Kate be as stubborn as me in her approach to not succeeding the first go-round, but I sense a kindred obstinance. A stupidity in our refusal to accept what’s possible and not, if you will.

She’s a good kid, though. All three of my siblings are, in fact. I suspect at this point, we’ve probably called the same city home for the last time, the four of us, some time ago. And I’m terrible at showing it, at keeping up, at letting them know I’m alive and asking how they are, but I still think about them a lot.