Reading Time: 5 Mins
Family Day is complicated for me.
I find myself today feeling nostalgic for what family once was to me, angry at what it became and grateful for what it now is.
My life with my daughter and fiancée is amazing and I would not change a thing. Things are amicable with my first wife because we always put this little girl first and I have a loving sister who I am very close to. There are extended family members where there is a lot of love felt as well: uncles, aunts, cousins, and my fiancée’s entire family is amazing as well.
But I consider my family more than these blood and soon-to-be-married-into ties. I’m a firm believer that you can choose your family and that friends, your closest and dearest friends who are there for you through the good times and bad, can be more your family than even your own parents.
I have only seen my parents once in the last twelve years, at a funeral for one of my great-uncles several years ago. They do not know their granddaughter, nor have they met my fiancée. The life I was leading when I last saw them was very different from what it is now and I honestly do not think I would be here, enjoying my life so much, if I hadn’t parted ways with them.
This is not a story high on detail; the why’s and what’s would only serve up a platform for a dialogue as to who might have been right and who might have been wrong, and that’s not a dialogue I wish to entertain. I’ve put more thought and time into that dialogue over the last twelve years than anything that could arise out of a few comments from internet strangers here and I’ve always come to the same conclusion: life is better now than it would have been.
If I know you well enough in real life, this has probably come up a few times over beers, so it’s not a topic I avoid, there’s just a time and place for it.
So today I find myself remembering what weekends were like in the good times as a kid, before Family Day was even an official holiday. We’d make a fantastic meal, barbecue, or ribs in the oven, maybe chicken wings and garlic bread. There would be music, always music, ever present in our kitchen. Board games, snacks, movie nights. There were many good times to remember where we came together, the four of us, as a family and just enjoyed time with each other.
Our extended family would get together at my Nan and Grandad’s place for every single birthday. Some of the ones that were close together would be combined, but we tried to do that as little as possible so that people could have their day celebrated.
A roast dinner, football in the backyard, darts in the basement, too many people and not enough chairs in the living room. Getting a seat was a cutthroat game and age didn’t matter. You were always trying to snake a seat from someone. Only Nan and Grandad were safe.
And then life got more complicated for so many reasons, too many reasons to list here, and our family splintered.
There were more combined birthdays and we saw each other as a larger family less and less. Now it’s down to Christmas, Thanksgiving and maybe Easter.
My professional life took off and I started forming strong bonds and connections with the friends I had made, all while staying close to friends from University and High School. Those times with my friends started giving me the same feelings as my family had previously. Safety, security and, for me, a tie to the past while at the same time building strong foundations for the future.
I am glossing over so much here and putting about a decade’s worth of emotional evolution into a just a few sentences, but that’s because I’m mostly focused today on what currently is.
I believe that you can absolutely choose your family.
I believe that the friendships you maintain and the people you choose to spend your time with are your truest family.
They may not have a branch on your official “Family Tree”, but they have grown in their own tree, a tree that you have planted so close that, over time, the branches and roots become so intertwined that you cannot tell where one tree ends and the other begins.
And this tree that you have plotted and watered and nurtured grows far stronger than any one, single tree.
I’m not saying that those with deathbed regrets about holding grudges with family members are wrong; every family situation is different and there is no one right way to look at all of this. You have to personalize it. You have to approach it from all angles and you have to come to your own conclusions.
For me, I love the tree I have that supports me now, grown from both blood-relations and amazing friendships, and I am thankful for the roots that were so deeply planted by my grandparents so long ago.
Family Day is complicated for me, but when I think of the Family Tree as not just one part of who I am and I realize I have these strong trees all together, holding each other up, it become easier to understand.
However you define your family, I hope you take some time today to reach out to them and let them know how much they mean to you.