Yesterday afternoon I had dinner with my parents. \u00a0 This is unusual only because they live 2 hours away and I wasn’t expecting to see them. \u00a0But they were out driving around and wound up in Mason City. \u00a0Because why not? \u00a0I swear my parents are part gypsy!<\/p>\n
As I was driving home my husband (who is out of town) asked what we talked about. \u00a0I had no good response. \u00a0We were together for 90 minutes and yet I got nothing? \u00a0At first I was really bothered by this. I was paying attention. \u00a0We talked the entire time. \u00a0 But not about anything earth-shattering. \u00a0We talked about my niece and nephew \/ their grandkids. \u00a0About vacations we took decades ago. About the weather (yes really). \u00a0Just simple conversation. \u00a0And it was wonderful.<\/p>\n
To put it mildly, I am the black sheep of my family. \u00a0My folks and I don’t see eye to eye on a number of things, several of which came to a head in the last couple years. \u00a0There have been testy exchanges, shouting and long periods of radio silence. \u00a0But last night we just hung out. \u00a0We shared a meal. We talked. \u00a0We laughed. \u00a0We reminisced. \u00a0We enjoyed being together. \u00a0It it felt great. \u00a0No, we didn’t solve any of the world’s or the family’s problems. \u00a0But that’s what made it so nice.<\/p>\n
As much as it pains me to admit it, my parents are getting older. \u00a0Sure, they are in good health and sure, I come from a long line of people who live into their mid 80’s at least. \u00a0But anything can happen any day to anyone. \u00a0They say life is what happens while you are making plans. \u00a0I saw that first hand yesterday and it’s a lesson that’s going to stick with me for a while.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday afternoon I had dinner with my parents. \u00a0 This is unusual only because they live 2 hours away and I wasn’t expecting to see them. \u00a0But they were out driving around and wound up in Mason City. \u00a0Because why not? \u00a0I swear my parents are part gypsy! As I was driving home my husband (who is out of town)… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-its-all-love","category-warm-fuzzies"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t