Family.....ties?

fam·i·ly:

1. a. a basic social unit consisting of parents and their children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not: the traditional family.
b. a social unit consisting of one or more adults together with the children they care for: a single-parent family.
2. any group of persons closely related by blood, as parents, children, uncles, aunts, and cousins: to marry into a socially prominent family.


I met my fathers sister aunt for dinner last week. She was in town for work and wanted to get together. When she first proposed it, I thought about going. not going. going. not going. For weeks. Until I finally decided to go. At the very least, I had questions about my family medical history. Answers to questions that health professionals often ask me, to which I stupidly reply "I don't know" - having to then explain that I am estranged from that side of the family. If estranged is even the right word. Abandoned might sum up how I feel a bit better.

So off I go to meet her. All in a tizzy and bag of emotional nerves...

How odd to spend time with a relative that I don't have contact with outside of Facebook, and know that my father, her brother, has no interest in doing the same.


How awkward to have his name come up, and sit there for a second...debating what to call him, and finally settle on his first name.
"Dad" is earned, after all.
"Father" feels like a stretch, too.


How painful to sit there and want so badly to ask "why doesn't my father contact me?!?", but know that no answer would really ever pacify, comfort, or make me feel any better.

How fascinating to sit there, across from this blood relative who I have only seen 2x in almost 30 years, and discover that we are so alike in belief systems that I was almost bound to be a black sheep on that side of the family anyways.

So instead, we sat there and made small talk until we both felt comfortable enough to open up and share more intimate details of our lives as we live them now. Not glossing over the reality of the broken family we come from, but not dwelling on it, either. Accepting each other as individuals, offering kind words and reassurances where needed. Each telling the other at the end "I'm proud of you".... for living your life, for getting past your past, for losing weight, for being a good person, for being beautiful - inside and out, for being brave enough to meet up with each other at all....

It was, in a word....weird. But I am glad that I went. Blood relative or not, turns out she is a pretty cool lady who I would probably hang out with anyways.

I hope that you are having an awesome day!
xoxox
~J