No one said that families are easy. Pretty much everyone I have ever run into has had some family drama in there life. It completely baffles me. I don't understand how my picture of family can be so different from others.
I picture family as the support that never leaves your side. I picture parents who keep everyone together (cause isn't it easier to drift apart once you leave the house?). When you go through something really rough in life, isn't it supposed to be your family that stands besides you? When you bring your own children into the world, shouldn't it be that your family is there for you? When you have something to celebrate, shouldn't your family be there cheering you on?
Maybe I'm lucky to have a positive outlook on family, despite having my parents being divorced. When I was a girl and my mother moved out of my "family" home with me... it was her family that helped her set up the apartment and get her situated. They supported her, and in turn it was a support to me. When I went through abuse, my family was there for me. I remember my grandparents driving up to Wisconsin to be here when I testified in court. They supported my mom and me. Never in my life have I felt the weight of my father's support and love as much as the day I was in the courtroom. It wasn't my friends or my families' friends that came and supported us. It was my family. My non-chosen, not perfect family.
For everything that my family is, they are not perfect. Yet, I don't want to trade them in for a "chosen" family. It seems to me that my generation is quickly and hastely able to disregard their families and trade them in for "chosen" family.
If you don't know what I mean, let me explain. I know many people that would give up their actual families and create "chosen" families of their friends. The family or families that they do everything with. They would have all the birthday celebrations with them, parties, etc. Their priorities do not lay in immediate family. They would have have picked friends to act in a role of family.
I have close friends. I am thankful for it. But I know that friendships come and go. They change with various seasons of life. Who I can count on today will not be who I can count on tomorrow.
Family. The word and concept just sounds so foreign. I look at my kiddos and wonder how I can keep them from drifting apart. I don't want them to grow up and be done with their relationship. I want them to be able to continue to support each other, encourage each other and outlast my love and support of each other. I want them to come to together as adults because they want to see each other instead of because I am requesting it. My prayer is that if one of them falls down, the other two will be there to help pick them back up. Is that just such a foreign concept in today's world?
Would you trade up your family for a "chosen" family? Do you have a "chosen" family? Am I the only one with these "old fashion" sense of family?
No, but I include quite a large number of chosen family into the walk-through-fire sense of FAMILY. I realized this week that some family I don't really like much still counts, I am still there for joy and celebrations in their lives and for the tears and emergencies. I want them to know that they can count on me. I want every member of my FAMILY to understand that I genuinely want to be there for them, I want our kids to play and grow up feeling the same.
ReplyDelete