What is it like to have a family?

@TalkToMe5656 "What is it really like to have a family?"

As with everything in life, there's good and bad. Sure, it's nice having people there for you, to lean on and depend on when there's difficult/uncertain times. Sure, it's nice having someone to share your life with and share about your day. Sure, it's nice to have people to hug, kiss, spend quality time with. Sure, it's nice to have people to love and to have people who love you. 

But sadly, sometimes people are born into families that give anything but such. Sometimes some things take place behind closed doors and in homes that have no business taking place. Sometimes it's heartbreakingly lonely even when you're surrounded by people. Sometimes family uses and abuses you. Sometimes they take you for granted. Sometimes they hurt you the most compared to others you come across in life. I suppose it's just a part of being imperfect humans. Because sometimes when you see people all happy, they really aren't. Sometimes those people you see eating together at a restaurant literally just had a huge fight minutes before. Sometimes things aren't what they seem. 

Still, with that said-- here's what I believe. Family is not always just people you share blood with it. Family is not just created when 2 people reproduce. Sometimes, family is really the strangers who turn into friends who build something over years that make the decision to be there through the good and bad. The ones who choose to love you and stand by you no matter what willingly and not just out of obligation. 

@TalkToMe5656

          it is not always as it seems when observing others, we see specific things.  When we see happy or good moments, we miss many not so good moments.   Same goes when we see people at their worst, we do not know what their best looks like either. 

do not think you are missing out on something you observe as it is only part of the story. 

@TalkToMe5656

what is it really like to have a family? To have people who are yours, and you are theirs?

Generally speaking it’ll depend on who you ask. Some people will say they love having a family and having good healthy relationships with their family members. If that’s true they should love and value that. Then there are those who have bad unhealthy relationships with their family members, to the point where they wish they didn’t have a family. 

I’m on the bad side and for the most part I’ve always been there. I’ve done whatever they needed me to but they were never there when I needed them to be there. They care about their friends and their schedules first so I see why those things always get priority number one on their list. 

I can only describe it through my perspective.

For me, having a family has meant a lot of things. In the very beginning, safety. And making them smile. And then I was 8, and my mom was gone a lot. It then meant that sometimes we would be separated but would always come back together. In my teens, family meant I had someone to make proud. In my early twenties, it meant I ached.

Now, in my thirties, it means close to what you said. "You are theirs." I am theirs, yes.

My husband, brothers, one cousin, and a handful of other people I call family, I am theirs. It means I worry when they're not well. I worry when they're late. I get scared when they're in pain. I feel it. It means when they feel joy, I'm happy, too. When they struggle, I'm there just to be there, so they're not alone. It means I would rather do without than see them do without.

I'm reminded of the words of a guy I know: you love them as yourself.

It's hard to articulate the feelings swirling in me, some, I can't put words to. When you're with them, you'll know, but especially when you aren't with them, you'll know.

Hi

Hi