more low-key festivities.

i swear it's been like ten years since i've seen fireworks on the fourth of july. here's to another year without. it was nice to get up early and head out on the drive south with my mom to my uncle's place. the sun shining, sunglasses on, ninety degrees. it was just good to be out in the world, living. not sitting here on my butt wondering if the day, when i eventually wake up feeling fully healed, will ever get here. it was nice to be greeted with warm smiles by a garage filled with family members. even seeing the uncle who always wanted to weigh you every time he saw you in your childhood days of being a little pudge. i mean, seriously who does that? why would you do that? and did he seriously always have a scale in hand just waiting for the opportunity for someone to take him up on his offer? after some minor health problems of his own and the advancement of age he's a lot easier to be around. the irony of the situation is now that i've lost all the weight and really wouldn't care if he asked me to get up on a scale, he no longer really seems all that interested. so we sat and talked and ate and just enjoyed the day. my other uncle is insane and i honestly enjoy every minute i spend with him. he reworks jokes into stories and begins to tell you something that happened to him only to pull the rug out from under you as you realize that he's telling you yet another joke. the sight of my aunt and my uncle's girlfriend laughing at their dirty little remark about boxes in a church was enough to make my day. i guess i see where i got it from, years of growing up around these people. after the picnic we said our goodbyes and then headed to the cemetery to visit my uncle's grave, in one month he'll have been gone a year. the reality of that still hasn't settled in for me. then we walked over to my dad's grave and then my grandparents'. it's easy to find yourself removed from the situation you're in, standing there looking at a bunch of stones in the ground. it's hard to wrap your mind around the fact that the people you knew and loved for so many years, people that were everyday parts of your life are now just missing from it. parts of your life that are no longer just there like you always naively assumed they would be. i guess you don't notice people as much when they're always there. sometimes it takes not being able to call them or see them whenever you want to make you realize how huge they really were to you. that's sad, it really should go the other way. the day wound down with some ice cream and hearing fireworks off in the distance. i still didn't get to see any, maybe next year.