Family actually IS what we make it.

So, I saw something this morning that made me think of family. One of my friends was expressing disappointment at her own family's failure to be a part of her and her children's lives. I really felt for her.

I know a little bit about the failings of family.

As I grew up, I was part of my stepfather's family. At the time, I was a child, and I went wherever I was told. That meant that I spent every other weekend at his parents' house. They lived out in the country, and for the most part, I always had a pretty good time. But spending time with them was very different than spending time at my real grandma's house. At their house, we weren't allowed to run through the house--there were too many nice things that we might break. We weren't allowed to be messy. We always had to make our beds. We had to drink Kool-Aid or iced tea--never soda.

My real grandmother also lived in the country, and on the rare occasions I was able to spend the weekend at her house, we would take magical side trips on the way there. We stopped at parks. We stopped to pick wild flowers along the road. And I can't count the number of box turtles that became weekend pets. My grandma always let me help her out in the kitchen, which I am sure was more of hassle than a help, but she didn't mind. She was always sewing or making things, and she always allowed me to play with scraps of fabric and whatever was lying around the house to "make things" right along with her. At her house, I ate and drank anything I wanted to.

Sadly, as I got older, I didn't appreciate the magical times with my grandma. I felt like she treated me too much like a little kid. I preferred the expectation of behaving more maturely and sitting at the dinner table with the more sophisticated adults at my stepfather's parents' house.

My stepfather was a maniacal, controlling and abusive individual. As I reached adolescence, he exerted greater control upon me, and became an even greater nightmare to me than he had been throughout the rest of my childhood. When I finally was free to reveal his abuses, his family, which I had come to think of as my very own, shunned me. I was disowned by the very people I had counted on and thought would always be a part of my life.

As I had grown up, my mother never kept it a secret from me that my biological father hadn't chosen to be part of my life. I don't fully know why, but I never felt slighted by this. I accepted that he and my mother had been much too young to face the realities of raising a child, and that certainly I shouldn't hold anything in my heart against him for that.

At about the same time that the family I had known all my life shunned me, my father decided to make himself known and be a part of my life. He seemed to be everything I would ever have wanted my perfect father to be. He was interested in learning. He wanted to improve himself and his life. He was gentle and encouraging.

Sometimes, things don't work out even when they seem perfect. The complications of the life he had already built for himself and his new family made it very difficult for us to stay in each others' lives. We tried for several years, against the current, but things unraveled. It has been many years since I last heard from him.

With all of these difficulties, my relationship with my mother also became strained. I often think the challenges of raising a child, as a child herself, made it impossible for her feel completion in her own life as it was. She is ever seeking ways to draw attention to herself, and she frequently envies any happiness my sister or I find in our own lives. Sometimes she does very hurtful things--even unforgivable things. And I don't remember a time in which she has accepted responsibility for harm or mistake.

All of these family failures culminated in a deep sense of loss for me. These family members are living, but in many respects, they are dead in my own life. In the past, when I have thought of them and the fact that they cannot be a part of my life, I have felt horrible sadness.

Sometimes, you have to learn the hard way that family is what you create yourself, not always what you are born into.

I was on my way home from work recently, and found myself listening to National Public Radio. This particular night, I happened to catch part of one of my favorite programs, This American Life. The particular piece was about a man, who as a kid developed an intense connection to the writing of fantasy author Piers Anthony. He was obsessed with his work.

This kid wasn't particularly happy. He was an oddball at school and he didn't get along with his family. He started to consider that maybe he if he could just find Piers Anthony he would be able to convince Mr. Anthony that he would be a perfect in his family. Eventually, he was successful in locating Piers Anthony. And while he was kind, Mr. Anthony declined to let him stay more than one night. Sadly, this boy wouldn't be able to create the fantasy family he had imagined.

I was so taken by this story, that even though I reached my street half-way through, I kept driving around my neighborhood until I got to listen to every last word. I knew what it was like to wish I was part of a different family. I knew what it was like to feel like I didn't belong anywhere.

Sadly, the feelings of not belonging sometimes follow you. When you realize that you don't fit, or that you are unwanted, it's a difficult feeling to overcome. You look for resolution in the weirdest places. Sometimes you're lucky enough to find it. Sometimes you don't.

Those of us who long for belonging and family struggle to understand that family isn't a group, it's a feeling. Sometimes it takes years to understand that your family is whoever gives you that feeling you are looking for.

With Jeph by my side, I'll always have my family.

For years, my husband has had a saying. At times I have felt sad and lost in my struggle to fit into places in which I want to belong, and he reminds me that we are a 'nation of two.' No matter what may happen in all of these settings in which one or both of us seems to be struggling to belong, we are family together.

I still forget sometimes. It's human nature to want to fit in and to belong--to be a part of something. But I have come to believe that family reveals its true self to us through the people we love most, the people we can always count on, and the people we want to be there for. Family is the connection we feel to other people's hearts, even if at times we find our hearts have been broken.

That tiny line is our child six weeks into this adventure. 

I'm sure that there will always be times when I wish things were different with respect to my own family. But, I have my husband, I have my dog, and in six months, we should have a child of our own. Jeph's mother has become my adoptive mother, and I know that as much as I have loved her, she will become an even bigger part of my life moving forward. My grandmother still forgets that I am forty-one years old, but I am okay with that now. I seek advice from my two half sisters (who are actually whole people), and there are friends who are as dear to me as sisters as well.

I have family. I do belong. It may not be the way that most people have these things, but it's better than good enough.


Good Enough--Sarah McLachlan

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