I always put on a brave face when people ask me how I deal with my mother living 1000 miles away.

I play tough. I say that she's happy, so I'm happy. I say I miss my dogs, but I pretend that I am fine.

And then I fly down to see her, and suddenly I'm not fine. I come up the escalator from the plan train, and I get butterflies like I'm a 15-year-old going on her first date or something. I see my mom and her boyfriend, and I get this goofy smile, and I waddle over to her. We hug.

We go home and see my dogs, and we all watch cooking shows. She knits, I sew, and her partner naps. (He sleeps when he's relaxed, so I guess it's a good sign?) I see her days at a time, rather than almost every day or weekend. Sure, we Facetime, but there's something different about seeing her in person.

We fall back into our old routines. She tries to help with everything, and I snap at her. She tries to fit 4 months of caring into days, and I begin to take her for granted.

It's shocking how quickly I begin to snap and begin to take her for granted again. I begin reverting back to my old self, but I'm fighting against myself the whole time.

And then the last comes around. She doesn't know this, but as I'm sitting, packing or watching a show (or both), I realize just how much I'm going to miss her, and just how much her being so far away sucks. I realize how much I do miss, whether I acknowledge it or not.

I go cuddle our dogs and I cry.

It's like I swallowed a boulder. The pain of missing her is so great. I'm realizing just how long it will be until I see her next.

If she drives me to the airport, I refuse to cry. She cries, but I don't. Because I don't want her to think that I'm not happy for her.

This last time, her boyfriend drove me. This last time, I cried my eyes out, having cried the night before cuddled in bed with my 70 lb Golden Retriever. It just seemed extra hard. And as we drove away, tears rolled down my face.

A professor of mine called me out on sounding more excited to see my dogs than my mom. I retorted with something like "well if you knew the history" but she was right. I spent so much of my life taking her for granted, that I wasn't ready for when we "lost" each other.

We don't see the world the same way, and we disagree a lot, but she is still my mom. Always will be. She's still treating me like a baby, which is infuriating, but it's from further away, and I miss it.

If you have a relatively accessible mom, or you communicate with her all the time, you might not understand this. It's hard to recognize how much this impacts you unless you've experienced it.

If you've lost touch with or take your mom for granted, this is me calling you out. Distance doesn't stop her love and support. We take our support systems for granted, I think it's just our nature at this point. But don't. It is so painful to only have 4-14 days a year to spend with your mom.

And mom — please don't take this as me wanting you to move back to Illinois. Just as you said in Zaxby's on Monday, you hate the cold weather. And the dogs are doing amazing. While it sucks to never see you, I'm glad that I at least have my 48-72 hour long visits with you. I'm working on not taking you for granted. I'm working on granting you grace. I'm working on recognizing your own pain in being so far from us. But this is the happiest you've been in a long time, and I wouldn't change that for anything.