It Runs in the Family
Family, like adulthood, is what you make it.
Family, like adulthood, is what you make it.
Family is hard. That’s the theme of my week. Every single person I know is having some sort of struggle with, what my therapist calls, their “family of origin.” I understand why my therapist calls family that. My parents certainly came up with the idea of my existence and then, I suppose, executed on that idea. (I always say it semi-sarcastically because “family of origin” sounds like a prequel for a self-published fantasy series.) “Family of origin” also makes total sense. My nuclear family may be where I originated, but it wasn’t where I ended. And that was the other theme of my week. My friends are family. I started in one place, but I’ve ended up on the opposite coast. I formed a band of people I care about across the continental United States. That’s family, too. You can tell my friends are family because I check in on their origins and also leave room for them to occasionally drive me nuts. Being a millennial adult can be hard. The expectations of what adulthood looked like and what adulthood is don’t always match up. It is important to remind yourself: whatever your adulthood looks like? That’s adulthood.
My nuclear family may be where I originated, but it wasn’t where I ended.
My uncle—childless, city-dwelling, cooler than me—always served as an example for me of what adulthood could look like. He, like me, has a series of friends who are also family. (He is a polyglot, so his friends span the globe. But I’ll catch up someday on that front.) Even now, in his eighties, he keeps up with friends on a near-constant basis. He may not always be physically with them, but he’s always there for them. Family, like adulthood, is what you make it. My family includes my parents, my sister, my cooler-than-I-am uncle. But it also includes my many friends. They are an equally important part of the mix. Some days, they’re even more important. Don’t tell my mom. That’s what I love about being an adult (and hated about being a child). You choose how you want your life to look. I started in one place, but I ended in another and all the choices I made in between created the life I have now. I like the life I have now. And that means, no matter what expectations might have been, I stuck the landing.