Cherish Your Family Time

date: Mon Jul 19 04:12:39 UTC 2021

I had a profound moment

today at a family dinner. We're all in more or less the same stage of life:

we're younger, we've got spouses, and we're still pretty flexible in terms

of time. And we're in a position socially and geographically where we have the

opportunity to get together pretty regularly. It's about at least once a month,

which is more than I can say for literally anybody else that I'm related to.

It's a regular span of time that I look forward to. There's always food, games

of some sort or another, and (spirited, loud, obnoxious, stubborn) debate over

something that's equally probable to be relevant, ridiculous, or too

much of an ongoing inside joke for it to make sense in a week.

I realized that we're already starting to leave that stage of life. People are

moving onward and upward in their education and jobs. Some will be moving away.

None of those things are bad, but they are (at least in the US) fairly

inexorable milestones of individual and familial progress.

That's a whole other can of worms

however; and to make a long and opinionated story short, not all family trees

have healthy branches, or leaves that like to talk to one another. And that's

just fine: everybody has choices to make, and you as a person cannot change the

mind, heart or ideology of anyone but yourself. So if other people refuse to

change and it comes into conflict with what you refuse to change, then there

are only a few ways where that conflict is resolved in a healthy and forthright,

communicative way. Often times it means that those elements of the family unit

drift apart apathetically, or (in worse times) have lasting derision towards

one another. I've seen that happen in my own life plenty.

Thankfully though, like I just mentioned, there are plenty of times where that

isn't the case, and happy times are the norm. I count myself blessed to wind

up in the situation I'm in. It's not the case for many people.

TL;DR

No matter what stage of life you are in personally, make sure that you make the

most of the time you have with your family members. Make memories. Build lasting

relationships that aren't predicated on purely transactional expectations.

As the saying goes: "The family you choose is much more important than the

family you are related to." Treat your family well, blood relatives or not.

Contact Me

external email: wholesomedonut at tuta dot io

mastodon: at wholesomedonut at fosstodon dot org

matrix: at wholesomedonut colon matrix dot org