Families

We’ve heard the cliché and oft-repeated truism about how we may be born into one family, but in our lifetime we create new “families”, perhaps ones that are a truer reflection of ourselves. Obviously there is the family one can choose to create through marriage and children, but the “family” that has come to mean the most to those I know, including myself, are the ones we create out of whole cloth as we grow and take on adult lives. True, I often wonder if I am as adult as I know I should be given my age, but this writing is not about my maturity or lack thereof. Rather it is about the “families” we govern ourselves to create. When I think about my tribe or “family” I see a circle of women. November 2nd is a little known holiday called “Look for Circles Day”. I know, I am truly digging in the arcane now. I don’t know if I had looked at my “family” even 10 years ago whether I would have seen such a perfect, complete circle. But, now in this period of my life, when I look at my tribe, it is indeed a circle of brilliant, funny, loving, generous, accomplished, and badass women. The circle is viewed as a profound and transcendent symbol that can represent wholeness, completion, inclusion, life cycle, heaven, eternity, and the universe. My “family” members are all ages, colors, nationalities, and with varied careers. Yet when I think about each one, there is one connective tissue beyond me that becomes apparent: their strength. Each embodies and displays the kind of strength that does not use bravado as a cloak. I would let them steer and protect me through the end of the world nihilism and utter chaos of our potential dystopic world, themes that seem to dominate all TV shows and movies lately. 

When I had my breakdown, this circle drew close around me, offering me a cocoon of sorts in the first tenuous days, months, and years after my hospitalization. As I gained my own strength and clarity, the circle widened enough to give me space to feel out all of these new discoveries and eventual changes I would make in my life. I’ve not been the one always in the middle of the circle. There have been many other moments when another member of my tribe needed the tightening of the circle as they faced a whole host of challenges of life. What is consistent is this circle never breaking or taking on a different shape. I have met people whose “family” is small, in some cases nonexistent. I suppose one can argue that they are not joiners and not in need of the company of others. But when I observe these people closely, the feeling or impression that is most acute, is of a loneliness that seems to take root at the epicenter of their person. True, loneliness is a part of our human condition. Certainly enough writers, philosophers, thinkers, and artists have contemplated, created, written, complained about this same human condition. In some ways the reaction to this condition is what drives so much of our social mores and structures under which we live. Even though loneliness is a human condition, we are constantly fighting against it because at our core we are social animals. In the past few years members of my circle have lost spouses, faced and are facing life-threatening illnesses, faced economic challenges, confronted unhappy marriages, and career challenges. Through it all I watch them face each of these challenges, some that would make most people quit period, with grace, humor, honesty, and hope. There have been articles lately about friends buying land and building those small houses on the property, creating their own compound of sorts, to spend the last years of their lives together. Although that sounds like a strange idea to some, I get the desire to spend my last days surrounded by and living with my “family” that have shown me love, brutal honesty when I needed it, enough laughter for any good life, sympathy, support, companionship, and fun. I know that life will continue to surprise and challenge me and my “family”, but I know each of us will be able to face all that is still ahead with a bit more courage and strength in the knowledge that the circle will always close in and offer protection. —YKG