Family. It comes in all forms, shapes, and sizes. Many people claim to have it. They even claim to know what it is. Some people don’t even like the family they have. But what is a family, exactly? Is it blood? Paper? Or something entirely more?
If you think family is blood, that that means you have to love someone because they are related to you through genetics. But there are thousands of people who can’t stand the people that they are connected to by genetics. There are even those who have been disowned by blood.
What about paper? I hate to break it to you, but that piece of paper means nothing if you don’t value the signature that you scrawled in a fit of passion.
That brings us to something a bit more nebulous. Bonds. Ties that bind. Experience. Life.
It is known that when you go through life with a person or group of people by your side they become closer to you. You could have a best friend that has been by your side through near-death experiences and heartaches galore. That relationship could be platonic or not. Your choice would then be to decide if that person was family.
The person obviously means something to you. Are they still a friend or are they more.
For instance, if you are in a long-term relationship with your significant other are they family. How would you expect your siblings and parents to treat them? Your significant other means something to you whether other people you know like it or not. Would you have your parents and siblings treat your significant other like family even though you don’t have a piece of paper and blood ties?
What I am trying to say is family is a nebulous concept that is completely bereft of little things like paper and blood. Family is what you make it and where you take it.
The next time someone tells you that you aren’t family because you don’t share their blood or have a piece of paper welcoming you to them, just smile and say ‘I mean something regardless. They chose to make me family. I have chosen them as my family. That means more than your societal concepts.’
Redfloras 