How much I miss you

Do you know how much I miss you?

Your lives are rolling still and I’m not there to see it happen.

I joke, “Haven’t they invented teleportation yet? I mean, we have robotic chefs, suitcases that follow you around the airport and backpacks that make piggyback rides better…”

My brother graduated this weekend – this is the second graduation I’ve missed because I’ve been abroad. He gave me the virtual finger, but I’m sure it was just button-pushing. An under-the-bridge family of trolls.

One of my best friends from my previous job graduated last weekend, and she’s going to be a mom (again) soon. This time, it’s a girl – and I’m so damned proud, because she’s a strong, brilliant, funny and big-hearted woman, and this girl is the luckiest non-born person to have this lady as her mother.

A dear man has been dumpster-diving! He looks for those elusive bits of hardware (when he’s not fiddling with fiber-optics) so he can teach himself something new. Machining from a piece of junk he found? No problem for this brilliant fella.

There’s that French guy, a trouble-making, hip-splitting dance machine with a crooked grin (the only good kind) and an adventurous heart. He plans his bike trip and I wait for him, hopefully not tumbling and tearing, to come down those hills.

I’ve been called a Luddite, but this experience has me not lauding but (maybe) appreciating Social Media (I capitalize with reverence). I can watch you, creepily, from thousands of miles away, and not even have to communicate if I’m in one of those moods (an enduring mood)!

Lady, we haven’t talked for real in a while! But I still think of your busty voice, your specific style and your endless exuberance. Are you still kicking that ass and pushing back in that almost-all-guy sphere?

One of my girls is getting more beautiful every time I see her. She’s a costume-wizard, makeup-slinging, weird creative exuberant soul. Every time those cameras flash, she transforms.

I watch an over-achieving, energy-efficient fellow kick his ass in a marathon and do the yoga thing (yeah, yoga is cool for guys too, if you’re into the static sort of thing).

My father still posts about cats and strange vehicles, and writes quips with a mountain-man voice; my mother writes emails and includes embarrassing photos from my youth, flints knives and never stops collecting (she had an antique shop, a few times).

I can Facebook Chat my silver-tongued appendicitis-stricken pseudo-step-father when he’s in the hospital, and then send long and sloppily sentimental emails (and all of the positive energy) in hopes of full and expedient recovery (yeah, there was a recovery).

There’s a lady and her son still exploring, Calvin-and-Hobbes style.

And there are more of you I’m creeping; and some of you aren’t present in the data cloud, but you’re still sitting with me.