Family ... Kin ... Clan ... Tribe

What is 'family'? Who are they? What part do they have in your life ... and you in theirs?

All my life, 'family' meant people related to me by blood. We rarely included anyone from outside the blood-clan into our tribe. So members of my family had a huge impact on my life and on me, sometimes not so good. But good or bad, I loved my family more than my own life.

Mine wasn't the type of family that invited others in. Our parents didn't invite a friend each for my brother and me to take along on even short trips: we and sometimes our cousin(s) were supposed to be enough playmates for each other, and if you knew my cousins you'd know why this was a delusion. My parents had friends they spent time with, but there was a strong line between friend and family. And you never, ever asked favors of friends. 

When I was very young, I loved my extended family. My mom's parents were the best, and my aunts, uncles, and cousins on my dad's side were loving and fun. My maternal grandpa died when I was 5 years old, leaving me as devastated as my mom, but we still had Grandma. My dad's dad was ... not great. As I grew older, my relationship with Dad's family deteriorated due to inherent sociopolitical and philosophic differences, starting when I was about 11.

I have always counted myself lucky, however, to have had the immediate family I had. My mom, dad, little brother, and I were a strong and loving family.  We had fun together, enjoying spending time together. Some of my best memories are composed of the four of us in the living room doing separate things, but still there together: Dad watching TV, Jim playing with cars on the floor, and my Mom and I on opposite ends of the couch, reading books.

In my teens I began developing friendships that were every bit as strong and meaningful to me as my family relationships had been. It is unfortunate that those friendships seldom last for most of us.

As I grew older, my relationship with my extended relations (with the exception of Mom's mom) frayed and broke. I learned that some people's families are made up of close friends and not blood relations. My own family shrank again as first my father died, when I was 17, and then my little brother died five years later. My mother's second marriage ... well, all that mattered was that she was happy. The step-family people are nice enough and I didn't have to live with "step-dad."

None of my friends really adopted me into their families in the way I wanted — as someone you invite to Thanksgiving dinner and who you can call for help (or, rather, who will call you for help — more than once a friend ran to the pharmacy for me). Nor were they interested in being adopted in that way other than giving me the title of Auntie to my friend's two children.  So when these friends found other friends, and married and took on their spouse's friends, they had much less time for me. I felt like I wasn't loved and I definitely didn't feel like family. When the time came to choose between staying in Seattle or moving on, I moved on, to live closer to my mom and grandma.

I had a good seven and a half years there. Then work ended and I had no friends outside of work. I had family, but couldn't ask them to support me in an unsupportable area. That's when I left to see what else was out there for me: friends, kin, family, tribe? Unfortunately, behind me my grandmother grew weaker and sicker and died nine months later. A year after that, I lost Mom and was down to no family. Alone. Or so I thought.

I've always held to the theory that you can make your own family from your friends. While I've always felt great love for and kinship with my friends, we've seldom crossed the friend/family line. Except for my friend Steve, who is as so much family to me that even my mom considered him family.

But now my oldest friends and I have taken that step closer and crossed the line between friends and family. They have stepped up and taken me in. I don't feel family-less any longer. My gifts this holiday season were gifts of family and the privilege of spending the holidays with these friends and family of mine. Hell, I'm evening naming them family on Facebook! How much more committed can you get?  

Everything in my life has been a big adjustment for years now. This new familial change is another one. But this one, at least, is a good change. Finally — it's a good change.