I Gotta Talk You Something

Every family has certain expressions that are used on a regular basis.

My step father is fond of saying, "I got news for you."

My sister in law will say, "At the end of the day..."

My mother has always freely given the advice, "When you do what's right you never go wrong."

I am sitting in my brother's backyard in Atlanta as I write.  A weekend with the family.  I came here to surprise the family for my eldest brother's fiftieth birthday.

It is hard to imagine that just a few months ago I was ready to cut both of my brothers out of my life completely.  In fact for a time I did.  I told them both never to contact me again.

We had the mother of all fights and we all said things to each other that should not have been said, but in the confines of "family" you are safe to say because you know eventually all will be forgiven and eventually the words will be brought back up.  Not as a means of rehashing the past, but rather fodder for laughter.

That is how my family is.  We can argue, and on occasion do, but in the end (my personal saying) we are family.

I have raised my children to be the same way.  We are close.  There are few secrets in my own household and that is the way I prefer it.  At my own dinner table there are few topics that are off limit.  One thing I tend to do a lot when I am with my children is laugh.

I have noticed in these few short days that one thing I tend to do when with my own siblings and parents we tend to laugh.  A lot.

We laugh at each other, we laugh at ourselves.  We laugh at the past.  We laugh that my mom will play ignorant to the stories of her children's teenage antics, as she pretends she had no idea any of that was going on under her 14 thousand square foot house.

She knew.

In the same way I know when one of mine has snuck out of the house, or snuck someone in.

There are times when I am back at home and I make a comment about missing my family and on of my kids will say, "We are your family Mom."  This is true, but family extends beyond our own tiny tribe.  Not that my personal tribe is tiny mind you.

Should I have moved when Eric died?  He wanted me to.  He made me promise I would.  I chose not to.

I have spent my adult life raising children in a state that never really felt like home.  Only until now do I realize why it has never felt like home.  Because it is so far away from the rest of the family.

I have three sisters in law.  I never had sisters when growing up.  The concept of sisters is foreign to me, and ironically all of my sisters in law themselves did not grow up with sisters.  Four women joined together in marriage and family made a new by choices of husbands.

I love them all.  They are all so different and all eccentric in their own way.

I yearn for a different time when we would be close.  Years that my children have missed because I did not have any of my family near me.  Cousins that barely speak, or have little in common other than a shared bloodline.

A time is coming very soon where I will be able to move, where I can, if I choose be closer to my family.  I think about it, I talk about it.  Yes, I would be closer to my brothers and sisters in law and my mother, but I would also be leaving some of my children behind in the only state they know as home.

Bittersweet are some of life's choices and we may not know what is the right choice or wrong choice.  It is useless to think, "What if".  There is no answer to what if.

For now, and at the end of the day, let me tell you something, I got news for you, enjoy what you have, wherever it may be. Because in the end your family (born into or created) is all you have.