Family

Family is suppose to be a word that instantly gives you comfort and strength. Reality is that not everybody has that reaction. You can't choose your family, or at least your extended family. The relationships are complicated, and the importance of those those relationships varies from person to person . All families have a little dysfunction, and many have more than enough.

I have a twisted view of family. I barely know and have weak ties to most of my extended family. Due to who I was raised with, I didn't connect with most of the family. I stayed in survival mode until I began having a family of my own. I don't have anyone to call, except my husband, when I have good or bad news. There are no traditions for holidays with members of my family outside my home. I don't look for any one's opinion of me and my life choices or acceptance. I have never had to.

But i am fiercely protective over my immediately family- husband and kids. Now, there are enough of them that I hardly notice who isn't there. But I still have my moments when I am sad that I don't have a bigger clan to belong to. I love my husband's parents and siblings, but he isn't closely attached to them either. We really have build our family values and traditions from raising our own children together.

I do wonder what it would be like to have a sister come into town to visit us, or Sunday night dinners with relatives. I do not have a mother or a father to show off my children to. There are no hand me down recipes, jewelry, or heirloom furniture. I have managed to accumulate a small amount of photos of some of my relatives that have past away, like my mother and my grandmother.I try to past down to my kids anything I can to bridge what they do not know. I sang my mother's lullaby to my children when they were infants. I tell the stories I was told about people in the past. I don't know how to explain why we are not close to anyone.

But I cannot imagine having responsibility to more family than I currently do.We have built traditions and expectations from our children as to what family means. And now we have one more branch budding on the tree, a granddaughter on the way. She will never know anything but grandparents that have been involved in every moment of her life and aunts and uncles that she will see constantly.I do live within the kind of family I dreamed of.

I am actually surprised at the type of family I have helped to create. Without having a blueprint or a model, I did good. I feel far more blessed than blue over what is missing. When I look to my future, I can only be excited for years filled with MY family.

This journey started out rocky, but I arrived in plenty of time to enjoy the beauty of what truly matters.