Sometimes I just need to write something to get it out of my head.  Thanks for reading and if it helps anyone, wonderful.

Family.  It’s a powerful word.  It brings forth images of smiling groups of people, multigenerational, sitting around tables brimming with food, sitting in front of warm fireplaces, playing games and laughing.  Family elicits strong emotions – joy, happiness, comfort.  Unless of course your family was nothing of those things I just described.  And if not, the last thing you want is for your colleagues or sometimes even your church to be described as “family”.

We talk about dysfunctional families, sometimes with a sense of humor, sometimes shaking our heads in disbelief at how people who are related could treat each other the way they do.  We look at kids at school who behave erratically and wonder what is going on at home.  I wonder how many of those kids have families so dysfunctional that from the outside things look very normal but on the inside it is everything but.  For me that’s scary dysfunctional.

In truly dysfunctional families, the missing ingredient is trust.  You never know what’s coming next, you never know if someone is going to leave you, you’re always waiting for the other shoe to drop.  You walk on eggshells all the time and learn to watch and interpret body language and behaviors like you life depends on it.  It’s a lifestyle that becomes part of your muscle memory and taints every relationship you have after that.

And then, God steps in and provides you with someone whose reality of family is just as described at the beginning.  A family so large and welcoming and loving that you can’t believe they’re real.  You keep looking for those signs you’ve always had to look for to stay safe and you can’t.  It’s an odd thing.  They’re not perfect, but are what you’ve always thought the definition of “family”, in the emotional sense, should be.  And yet, I still question my place in this wonderful family at times, not knowing what being part of a functional family should feel like.

It would be great if that translated to other groups, that “feeling” of family.  School communities sometimes describe themselves as families and every church I know describes itself as a church “family”, each of them a group of people brought together for a common purpose or goal, each of them trying to create that “feeling” of family among its members.  Forgetting completely that some members don’t want to have anything to do with family.  I certainly care about and may even love these people, I will work with and serve them, I will be professional, I will laugh at their jokes, share meals with them, but I’m afraid to make them a family because for me, family is not all its cracked up to be.

Some take offense at my attitude, as though I’ve insulted them by not wanting to be part of a “family”.  And their taking offense just reminds me of what family was in my past.  And sometimes responses like that have caused me to flashback to that uncertain childhood, recreating the emotional response and stress I lived with for what I remember of my life with family.  I’ve worked hard to get away from those triggers but once in a while something happens and sets it off and I became that ten year old child again.

I’m not one to be politely correct necessarily, although I try hard not to hurt or insult people intentionally and I certainly don’t want or need sympathy here or need anyone to tiptoe around me.  I live with and love a person who I know loves me unconditionally and it took me almost 30 years to get that.  I have children and now a grandchild, relatives, friends, and colleagues who are dear friends and who I know love and care for me.  And that’s enough.  I wouldn’t want to insult them by calling them my family.