Some Serious Whining

I have been seriously fighting the green-eyed monster lately. 


Mike and I are in kind of a rough patch in our life, and it seems that everywhere I look around me, people I know are getting all the things I want. While I am thrilled for them, it just kills me to be constantly reminded of how much I want these things, and how far I am from any possibility of having them in the near future.


Basically, what I want is this: To be living in a house, near lots of family, with a baby of our own and lots of cousins for that baby to play with. I know I'm just a little ahead of myself in this department; I am the oldest, after all, and my siblings aren't really there yet, so the fact that I don't have this right now doesn't mean that I won't in the future. 


But there are other factors besides my siblings, and they are ones that I am far less certain about. For example, we want to live near Mike's family just as much as we want to live near mine; when we were in Utah it was horrible being away from Texas, and now that we're in Texas it's horrible being away from Utah. Either way we're missing out on kids growing up. And the big problem is that I have no ideas as to how we will reconcile both our families in the future, when we are deciding on somewhere more permanent to settle.


 Then there's also the fact that I have a lot of family in Arizona, and as much as that has been a complicated area in my life, I still always feel this draw to Mesa, and an intense jealousy of my cousins who do live there. They live really near each other, and whenever I see pictures of them doing things together with their kids I just want it so bad for myself too. 


Then, of course, there's the fact that every other person I know seems to be traveling right now. This is my other biggest thing. My cousin and his wife are living in Italy, and a guy I knew in college is there too; a couple former roommates recently went to England, and one was on some kind of tour of the Mediterranean; my brother is in Greece, and my mom and sister are about to be joining him and then going to Israel together; my aunt was just in Israel last month; a college friend is in Russia; two cousins are in China (separately); an old friend from EFY is on her way to Norway; a girl from my ward is in New York; another former roommate was in Chicago a few months ago; a cousin just went to Washington D.C.; and so on. You see what I mean. 


Traveling has always been one of my top most super-ultimate desires, and yet I've never been out of the country. I went to Chicago my junior year in high school and Las Vegas in college, and that is about the extent of it (besides some trips to California when I was a kid, which don't count, because I hardly knew the difference between California and Arizona; oh, yeah, and a trip to Nauvoo several years ago). Those were great trips, but they aren't what I want. I am dying to see Europe. I know it will happen for me sometime, but I just can't imagine it, and in the meantime it is just really hard for me to see everyone else doing it. I've been trying so hard not to whine about it, but oh well. I have limits.


Okay. I feel better for now. Thank you, blogosphere. Resuming normal programming... now.