Family

So I’ve been thinking a lot about family for the last few weeks. Maybe it’s because my wife gave me a DNA test for my birthday and I’m waiting on the results. Maybe it’s fact that I’ve never been close with my extended family due to falling outs my parents had when my brother and I were young. Maybe it’s because my oldest son just turned 16. Or maybe it’s becaus COVID has kept me sepearted from almost everyone I consider family.

I don’t know who, if anyone, will actually read this but at least I can put my thoughts down. I don’t know what led to my parents falling out with their families, all I know is that when each of my grandmothers passed away we stopped visiting most of them. In the time since I became an adult I have done my best to reach out and try to connect with them but it has been difficult. It’s like trying to become friends with someone who you have nothing in common with. Normally with families you have the shared history but that is missing for me.

With my Dad’s medical condition I have a hard time connecting to him, he’s not the same person that I remember from my childhood. My brother, who takes care of Dad, has always been happy living in his own little bubble of a world. If it doesn’t take place in a book it doesn’t hold much interest for him.

When I was a teenager hanging out with my friends I remember making a comment about how they were like family to me, the family that I got to choose. That is still true to this day. Yes some of them have left and others have come but since I don’t have much of a connection with my biological family I do my best to keep the connections strong with them.

These days I have my own family. A wonderful wife, two amazing sons, and in-laws who are happy to have me as part of their family. I even have an ex-wife and her husband who I consider friends, and in some ways extended family. I do my best to model what a healthy relationship is with friends and family for my boys because I am honestly afraid that if I don’t they will grow apart from me like I feel happened to me and my parents, and my parents and their parents. I want to stop this cycle before it gets too far.