20 mile distance

I live a 20 minute drive away from my family in Brigham. I have always been bad at keeping in touch but it's pretty sad that I can let a 40 minute round trip keep me from visiting my family more often. I know I don't need an appointment or invitation to drop by, which I do try to do sometime, but still.

I'm not invited to many things. A lot of times someone will say "are you going to such-and-such event?" And I say "No one told me about it." I guess this would be miscommunication, but a lot of times I think people don't bother inviting me because they don't think I will come.

Something I have a really hard time with is if I'm only invited to something here and there, there is much more pressure for me to come to every event I'm invited to. If I was invited to tons of things, it wouldn't be such a big deal if I didn't come to every thing. I feel like if I can't come to something I'm in the doghouse. Once I was invited the day before an important event and I couldn't come because I had plans. I then got a guilt-trip phone call about not making it. First, if it was so important it would have been helpful to know more than 24 hours in advance. Second, why am I even IN the doghouse?

I don't pressure anyone to come visit me in Ogden. In fact, I've lived in my apartment for over a year and have never had anyone from Brigham come hang out with me here. Joe's come a hundred times to hang out, and I've been to my sisters houses plenty of times, but they've never come to my apartment. I've never expressly invited them to, partly because it makes more sense for one car to drive to Brigham than for a couple cars to drive here. Partly because I feel

like if I don't have a reason (birthday or something) then it's not a big deal. I don't think there would be a reason that any of my family would feel unwelcome here or that they can't just stop by. I just don't think they want to.

I feel like the unpopular sister. I'll call my sisters sometimes to see how they're doing or whatnot. I don't get calls like that. I sometimes get calls to babysit. Sometimes invitations. but no one calls me to ask how things are going for me. I just really feel left out, because the people in Brigham see each other all the time. I don't expect to get invited to come if you're running to get something to eat at Wendy's. But sometimes it would be nice to get a call to hang out without it being a big family gathering. I don't like feeling like my sisters aren't my friends.

I know I'm bad at staying connected with my extended family. I still feel like a little kid who only goes over to grandmas house when my parents go. It's really something I want to get better at. I need to be the one to stay connected and not expect other people to do it for me.

It's hard for me to want to hang out with people when plans aren't solid. I'm not unflexible, but when people show up hours late, or when it takes hours to do we planned...I get frustrated. I just think it's really lame. What is the point of having a plan if you don't plan to follow it? I'm really not anal, I promise. I'm consistently late to things like school and church. I like doing spontaneous things.

Blah.

Sorry for the whiney post (if you made it this far) but sometimes things build up and up and need to get out somehow. I figure a blog about it is an easy way to get things off my chest -like writing in a journal but faster.