IMPERFECT FAMILY

Repeat after me:

There is no such thing as a perfect family.

Now that it’s said, perhaps we can all move on with our holiday gatherings with more reasonable expectations.

From birth our family sits as our template for communal life - its quirks, oddities, warmth and dysfunction all defining ‘normal’ in our young development. But with time and observation of others we begin to see that there is indeed ‘another side of the fence.’ The question then rises, which side is greener?

There is a joke in my extended family, that were we to write a book on the stories of our collective lives, the title would undoubtably be, ‘You can’t make this s**t up.’  Our history is one laced with tales of dysfunction and heartache, trauma and the surreal - sometimes when I recall the details my mind can barely believe that myself and those I love have lived them. 

But our stories are also filled with laughter and joy, forgiveness and breakthrough, countless precious moments underwritten by a deep and stubborn love. We recall challenging events with humor and smiles, and recount family tales with a subtle shaking of the head that quietly laughs at the bizarre beauty of it all.

There is no such thing as a perfect family.

But I once thought that there should be. 

I once held mine up to a standard of which we fell horribly short. I held romantic illusions of what family get-togethers should look like - no tension, no disagreement, no discomfort, and dear Jesus, please no talk of differing political views. The gathering of kin was to be all things joyous, all things laughter, all things…easy.

Perhaps what I really wanted was all things fairytale.

In some illusive way I yearned for a ‘normal’ family, with no way to define it outside of ‘not us.’ I thought our gatherings should ‘look’ a specific way that they most certainly did not. I though everyone else out there had it far more figured out.

But time has brought me behind the curtain of the lives of others and I have walked hand-in-hand with friends on their side of the fence. Which side is greener? I’ve come to realize that’s the wrong question.

There was a time I believed my family was not at all normal.

Now I realize we are very much human. 

There is beauty in the fact that a group of broken people can come together within a foundation of devotion and loyalty. The human experience is a messy one and I’m learning to stop looking for the ‘normal’ in life and start asking at the tales of hope and love. The strands of both are beautifully intertwined in all of my family’s mess, woven throughout our many opposing personalities, found deep amongst our countless differences and quirks.

We may not be normal, but we have dared to continue to love. 

No, there is no such thing as a perfect family.

But even if there was, I’m proud to be part of mine.