Yes, I know I'm late to read -- but I just read Mitch's blog from Saturday.   And, I get it -- really I do. [Thanks for the shout out, Mitch.]

As anyone who spends more than five minutes with me knows, my adult children both currently live very far away.  Far -- planes and trains away.  

Like Mitch's (rockstar) daughter, mine lives in northern California .  My son is in southern Virginia.  They, and we, really enjoy each other's company. But simple geography means that we don't have enough time together.  

Much as I would like it, the ease of being spontaneous just isn't in our playbook right now.  Our family time is intentional.  We make time to see each other and we plan -- oh my, we plan.  [OK, truth be told I am usually at the planning hub but I have very willing participants.]  

We travel to whatever city they happen to be in at any given time.  We go -- planes and trains.  Whenever we can, we go together. We explore fun cities, eat great food, visit beautiful vineyards -- and wait for it, go line dancing in San Francisco (I'm afraid the details of that one are for another blog -- we practically could have waved to Mitch at SFO as he was arriving and we were leaving).

We also have several times a year when everyone converges right back here at home.  During those times, the busy of everyday life slows down and we focus.  Yes, you might imagine that is my happy place.

At the end of every visit, there are tears.  OK, I cry -- no one else cries -- but a little ambiguity sounded better for this blog.  I cry every time a visit comes to an end, wherever we are and no matter how wonderful our family time has been.  These aren't sad tears necessarily -- maybe a little.  These are proud tears -- proud of what each of my children has built in their independent flourishing lives and that they feel the strong sense of family that I always hoped they would.