Family
Today was my birthday. Typically people worry about their days counting down, that new grey hair on their head, or maybe that dreaded party where they pretend to like their gifts. Maybe some will go into existential despair thinking about the state of their life. Or maybe they will have their best day of the year. For me, it kept me up at night writing this piece ruminating over a question that has been looming over me for most of my life:
What is family?
The only people who remember my birthday tends to be my family (And also strangely the company I work at, but let’s not go there.) That would be my mother, my father, my older brother, and my younger sister. Then there are my partner, when I was in a relationship, and my friends. While I don’t tend to care much for birthdays and holidays in general, it was exciting to plan something fun with all of my closest people and have them all in the same room. To me, the nature of the relationship and the quality of time spent together are what matter more so than any given label for it. The birthday is simply an acceptable excuse to throw a party.
For well over a decade into my adult life, I’ve always ended up with two celebrations. One with my blood family. One with everyone else I considered family.
The ones with my parents and siblings tended to follow the same pattern, year after year. A Chinese dinner at a big round table in some restaurant I’ve come to associate with obligation. We sit around while my father and brother essentially order everything on behalf of everyone. Then it’s a lot of waiting around in awkward silence until the food comes, gets devoured, and the bill arrives. We each say goodbye as we go to our respective cars and drive home.
The other ones start with big smiles and hugs as people trickle in. It changes every year depending on my whims at the time. Maybe it will be a potluck and games in my crammed little apartment. Maybe it have a Korean fried chicken feast where I blow out the candles lit over a drumstick. Maybe it will end up as a picnic in the park where we can get some sun and toss around a frisbee or play a friendly game of soccer. It reminds me a lot of the birthdays I used to have as a kid. It was like hanging out as usual just with more people and hype.
One year, I decided to do only one celebration, the fun one. I wouldn’t give in to the usual heavy insistence on yet another frigid Chinese dinner. I made my plans, sent out the invites, and made sure everyone knew where to meet up. People started trickling in and eventually all my friends arrived. None of my parents and siblings showed up. They all backed out last minute with the most frivolous excuses. That day confirmed for me the question that haunts every birthday.
Family are the ones that show up.
They are the ones that are happy to be there for the plans you made, just as I am happy to be there for theirs. They are the ones that listen when you say there are no presents necessary, and all chip in some effort to bring food to share. They are the ones who I have real conversations with, and are engaged with when sharing these increasingly rare moments. They are here to be in that moment with you, in the big bright moments, and in the heavy dark ones.
Biology has nothing to do with it. The families we are born into are not of our choice. If you grew up with them, they end up being the people you spend the most time with by default. They are the ones that end up with the most shared history. It is this length of time, under the same household, that form the initial bonds of what might be considered family. Genetics is merely just a starting point. What matters is how that critical time, that’s both very long and very short, is spent. For me, that was a lot of that time spent alone, inside my own head. Whether that was in silence absorbed by the TV, eating dinner at a big round table, or hiding out in my room buried on the computer, I was alone. Whenever I did speak up, there was always a lingering fear that there would be backlash on the other side. As I got older, the fear evolved into disappointment that my words simply didn’t get through. Anything that didn’t want to be heard simply wasn’t. Problems, change, tension, trauma. They didn’t exist.
I think this isn’t a unique situation. For many, the idea of family is a fixed picture inside their heads. A specific set of rules and expectations that aren’t said and never questioned. They emerge from the mix of personality, life experiences, and the media, gradually forming this tightly sealed box. For some, it may become an impenetrable safe with no door. For others a cardboard box with packaging tape. But it’s undeniable that that box is usually there. In truth, it’s nothing more than a story we tell ourselves.
For the longest time, my story was that I didn’t belong. I didn’t fit into any of these boxes my biofamily wanted me to, and so I started to believe that I couldn’t fit into any boxes for anyone. Nothing ever felt quite right. There is this constant fear that people don’t like me that much or really care. And it won’t last. It will end when they soon forget about me. To be honest, I still grapple with those feelings. It often feels like I have no family. It’s something that’s been tough to shake after living with it for so long. After that my biofamily didn’t show that day, things started to change. I’ve come to cherish the relationships that I’ve come to build with others, and know tha there is always value in trying to reach out. I had a good partner, I had good friends, and I continue to try to make new ones. While I know that they may not all be the best and may not last, the right ones can feel like family while they’re around. A family I helped build.
So, every year when my birthday rolls around and I receive texts from my parents and siblings (usually as about generic as a corporate e-card), I am thrown back into this question once again. It reminds me to keep trying to reach out to the ones that want to be there, to relish in the moments while they’re around, and to toss out all the old dusty boxes lying in the back of my mind.
Family are the ones I choose, and the ones that choose me.
