The Family We Choose

You are very fortunate if you can say that your family supports you unequivocally. There are people born every day into families who love their newborns because of a preconceived notion of what that infant will grow up to be. But when the desired path is strayed from and the ideal is not realized, there are many parents who justify disowning their children based on inflated standards, unwavering expectations or belief systems that profess hate as love.

This happens with alarming regularity but I cannot fully appreciate the agony that a disowned son or daughter might endure in light of not being wanted by their own flesh and blood. Even in spite of some differences, I personally have known nothing but unconditional love from my family. With that said, I still value the connections I share with not just the family I was born into, but the family I have chosen as well.

In all honesty, I spend more time with a select group of friends than I do with my own family. Over the years, bonds have been solidified that no amount of time spent apart or disagreement could extinguish. These people have become family but I needn't look at them and say, "you are my brother" or "you are my sister." They are my family because of how I feel when thinking of them.

When they are sick, I worry. I want to know that they are safe. Their happiness adds to my happiness and when the odds are against them, I hope for their success and cheer them on with all my might. I don't need to be reminded of what it means to be a loyal friend because of the familial urge I feel to be present, to be aware, to be protective. This is my instinctual response to a special group of people who have been exceptionally warm and welcoming to me.

I am a person that often needs time and space to myself but when left to my own devises I have a tendency to get lost in my thoughts and can lose sight of goals or begin to doubt my own potential to accomplish them. The remedy for this is my family and their encouragement: those whose blood I share and those I have chosen.

What makes the family we choose different from our biological families is that, in turn, they choose you as you choose them. We don't choose the family that we are born into. We are just accepted into the fold of our lineage with the hope that love stands the test of time.

While it is heartbreaking to know that some families are capable of turning their backs on their own children, I am grateful for those in the world who do not need specified criteria to be met or to share heredity to open their hearts to those who are simply in need of family. 

They just choose to love.