Nothing Like Family

This time of year can be a rocky time for a variety of different reasons, one of which is the fact that you will most likely be spending time with your family. Spending time with family comes with a whole laundry list of really great parts, but also a whole other list of challenges and nails-on-chalkboard-like annoyances that are inevitably going to arise. As I analyzed my family and our interactions, I realized somethings that I think are profound. Namely one thing, families are groups of people that aren’t put together by any sort of common ground other than the proximity of where you were conceived and born. The irony to me is that the people you spend your most intimate holiday times with are often people that actually don’t know you (once you hit adulthood at least) as well as they probably think that they do. I always wondered what it was like for DJs or guys in relatively successful indie band’s Christmas and Thanksgivings were like. Do they have to explain who Death Cab For Cutie is to their Aunt Loraine? Does Diplo have to explain who M.I.A. is to his grandma? Whenever you get people of that age gap and proximity gap together there are going to be some awkwardness and a little lack of understanding by both parties. That’s why I’m so thankful there is football on after the Thanksgiving dinner so that I don’t have to sit and talk with some random cousin’s best friend about some band she loves—”isn’t there a Lions game on?” All this said, these people do really care about you, can they for the most part, mean well. Humoring them and giving them a picture of your life is not only nice and caring, but also really helpful and great for them as well. I think most of my aunts and uncles and cousins feel disconnected from me because they don’t understand my day-to-day at all. “You do computers and what?” Is always the sentiment that I get from people. I posted on my facebook (which I knew my family could see) a few months ago a realization that came to me—I realized, “I’m family with my friends, and friends with my family.” I said this actually to show the sad state of affairs, but to my shock, most of my family that is on facebook, liked the comment. Clearly they had missed the point totally, which still to this day baffles me. I had several other friends who liked that comment and I know that most of their stories align with mine. In the modern world that we live in, especially when it is easier than ever to be connected with people miles and miles away, our relationships with our families are weaker, and our relationships with our friends have picked up the slack. It’s no wonder why all my NYC friends talk about “being a framily” that have to be, because if you aren’t connected to people, in a place like New York, your dead in the water. It’s basic survival. I want both though, connection to family and friends, but honestly the people who shape you the most in your adult life are the people who you spend the most time with. The people who you laugh with and have inside jokes with and stay up late and go to movie premiers with and go to church with and eat countless meals with at Subway and go on missions trips with and start a NPO with and help change a little part of the world with. Those people who are up front when you get married and are dancing at the reception. Those people need to be the most important people in the world to me, tied with those people who raised me, all of them. Your family is like an old shoe, it always fits right, and you can always keep coming back to it. I’m trying to learn not to forget my family because they will be in the pews at the church when I’m getting married, and eating the cake while my friends are dancing—and they are just as important to how I’ve got here and where I’m going to end up.