Sometimes you think and your thoughts are loud train whistles.

  Something about being around my family this past weekend really affirmed that I am where I need to be.  Usually I'm incessantly ranting about how "Oh I don't belong in Michigan," or "man, I really need to travel." Something has absolutely changed, and I feel different.  I feel a sense of responsibility.

  Saturday night, we all took a hike through the pitch black woods (giggling like schoolgirls the entire way) to reach the dock on the lake.  Finally, after what seemed like miles, we could finally hear the slow sloshing of the water against wood. Above us was a canopy of stars, unimaginable in Detroit suburbs. Almost immediately we all stopped our conversations at once to just enjoy once-in-a-while sounds around us.  At one point, my sister grabbed my hand and told me how important she thought I was. We sat there in silence for a minute before whispering conversation about how she is scared for high school and how she's scared for Josh.  I absorbed her concerns, some not to different from my own and some very familiar.  I couldn't respond with words at the moment but I hugged her hard and couldn't shake the feeling of restfulness.  I have a job, not an obligation to be her sister and to lead her as such.

  Tuesday's news of Josh's cancer had been leveling at the surface.  I'm not sure if it usually takes this long for news such as that to actually manifest into reality, for some reason with me it did. Today, my plans seemed so foolish to me.  How could I actually follow through with leaving the country when there's the chance that something could go wrong during his surgery? There's potential that this could have metastasized? How could I be so selfish. For the past week, I've been trying to assemble my finances in a way that will allow me to be comfortable after coming home from Ireland, while he's been crunching numbers to pay medical bills. I just cannot believe I was living in a fog of justification.  This is another reason why here is where I belong.  I need to be here in whatever way, significant or insignificant, possible.

  I guess it just took a couple of days waking up uncomfortably close (to people I unconditionally love) in a tiny camper to realize that people are bigger than our ambitions.