Family: Blood or Water, It Doesn’t Matter.

Family. It means more than just blood. Sometimes family consists of the people we care most about; friends, coworkers, etc. Family doesn’t always have to be blood relatives. In fact, often blood relatives AREN’T family. In order for someone to be considered “family” they have to meet certain criteria:

1.) There must be some form of love. There must be a deep connection between the parties involved that creates a strong enough bond to keep two parties together. This could be physically or spiritually. The “love” obviously doesn’t have to be romantic or intimate. In fact, according to the ancient Greeks, there are eight (8) different types of love: Philia, Pragma, Storge, Eros, Ludus, Mania, Philautia, Agape. These eight types, are then broken down into 3 categories: Friendship, Significant Other, and Family. To spare you time, I recommend looking up online the different meanings.

2.) There must be trust. Like most skills in life, trust is perishable if not practiced often. If you can’t trust the person you love, whatever type of love that is, then the love begins to fade. If you can’t trust someone, the definition of family for that person begins to fade as well. Have you experienced a relationship where you said you trusted that person but for some reason you really didn’t? Let’s say you’re in a relationship. You say you trust your boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever, but something in your gut keeps telling you they are sneaking around with someone else behind your back. So you get this urge to check their phone, or their social media account or whatever. Even though that person may have never done anything to lose your trust, you still have this suspicion. Now you start snooping around trying to gather evidence to proof your theory. You sneak their phone while they’re in the shower. You notice they borrowed your laptop and logged into Facebook so you check their messages. You start doing all of these things because you don’t believe they are being completely honest with you about something. Now your mind begins to make things up. You come across a simple message that says “love you!” and you assume they are seeing someone else. The entire time you’re doing this, your losing trust in the person you care about, but you’re actually taking away trust from yourself as well. Think of trust as a form of currency, and it’s stored in a bank. The more you snoop around, the amount of trust you have in your partner’s bank begins to dwindle, but also, the amount of trust you have in your own bank begins to go away as well.

3.) You must make each other better. Ever heard the saying “you are what you eat?” Or have you ever been told you become who you hang around? I was bullied in grade school. I had very few friends if any. The school I attended, was a small private Catholic School. The friends I did have, didn’t want to hang around me in public. They didn’t want to risk being the next person bullied like me. Because of this, I started hanging around a group of kids in my neighborhood that probably weren’t the greatest influences. We did stupid shit all the time. We would throw snowballs at cars, steal corn from the neighbors farm behind my house, stay out way later than we were supposed to. In fact, there was a time when I was dating a girl in high school. This girl and I were having an argument over the phone. I was grounded and couldn’t leave the house, but I knew she was at the wrestling tournament at my school. So I called up these friends and basically vented about my predicament. They drove their shit-box van to my house and parked down the street aways. I snuck out and jumped into the van. My Dad was the only one home and for all he knew, I was still upstairs in my room. We drove 20 minutes to my high school so that I could have a conversation with this girl and hopefully work things out. Long story short, we didn’t work things out. Even longer story short, I got caught. These friends weren’t making me better, well, maybe better at sneaking out of the house and not staying out so long, but they were teaching me things that were setting me down the wrong path. My point is, the people you hang around, the people you care about, the ones you call family, should make you better in a positive way rather than a negative one.

It doesn’t matter who it is or what their relationship with you is. Let’s say you have an uncle, for this example, we will call him Uncle Bob. Uncle Bob is your mom’s brother, and since he is technically blood, that makes him “family”. Now, Uncle Bob is a nice enough guy. He always buys all of the kids awesome toys for birthdays and Christmas. He has a horrible drinking problem though, and his opinions on certain things, don’t necessarily align with your beliefs. Uncle Bob is a gambler and an alcoholic, which makes family get togethers really fun and interesting. He’s a single man with no kids, makes great money at his job, but then blows it all at the casinos almost every weekend. This past weekend, you overheard your mom and Uncle Bob arguing on the phone. Mom slammed the phone down and walked away. You later find out that Uncle bob took all of your grandpa’s money and lost it in blackjack at the casino. Come to find out, that money was supposed to pay for your college tuition. Uncle Bob said he was just trying to get more money so that you could go to an even better school and not have to pay a dime! Uncle Bob comes over to the house several hours later to talk to you and your mom. He wreaks of alcohol but apologizes and promises that he will get all of the money back and then some. Something inside you tells you not to trust him and to not get your hopes up, but he’s your uncle; he’s family. Several months go by, and now it’s time to start applying to schools. You haven’t heard from Uncle Bob since that night he came over. You aren’t sure what schools to apply for since you really aren’t sure what you can afford. Afterall, your goal is to not have any student loan debt…

Let’s run through the three things above and see where Uncle Bob stands. Love: You know Uncle Bob cares a lot about you. I mean he clearly buys you amazing presents for your birthday and Christmas every year. You feel love for him as your uncle even. We will give this a check. Trust: Uncle Bob took the money from Grandpa that was earmarked for your college education and spent it gambling. He then PROMISED he would return the money plus more soon. It’s been months since you’ve seen him last. Makes you better: Uncle Bob spends entire weekends at the casino. He drinks heavily, and blows all of his paychecks on alcohol and gambling.

Now obviously this is a short scenario and typically. When it comes to losing trust, it happens at different speeds for everyone. Sometimes it can take just one mistake, other times it can slow disappear over many years. There are also a lot of different variables involved in this as well. But the point is still the same. Would I consider Uncle Bob as family? Probably not. He’s still my uncle (in this scenario anyway), but I wouldn’t consider him family.

A friend of mine struggles with her “family”. Her parents divorced many years ago, and since then, there’s been this huge divide. She has a sister also, and when the divorce happened, her mom took her, and her dad took her sister. They saw each other every so often, but definitely weren’t raised in the same house. Over the years, her dad drank heavily and her sister pretty much got away with everything. When they got older, my friend went on to become a trauma surgeon, while her sister worked as an EMT. Obviously being an EMT isn’t a horrible job, just not has prestigious and high paying as a trauma surgeon. The relationship between the two sisters were non existent. In fact, my friend didn’t even consider her sister family. There was no love, no trust, and her sister definitely didn’t make her a better person. But my friend wanted to form a relationship with her dad, so for years she worked hard on that. After my friend went through her nasty divorce with another POS, she found a new husband and they had a child together. Her now husband knew her dad really well, in fact, he looked up to her dad because they worked at the fire department together. Meanwhile, her sister has also had a divorce, didn’t care about her kids, was constantly getting into trouble, and just seemed to be falling deeper and deeper into a hole. My friend continued to climb and even helped her husband become a better human the longer they stayed together.

Fast forward several years later, and my friends dad is retired, and still drinks heavily every day. He’s now in the hospital due to his drinking and it appears life is slipping away from him. My friend received a text message from her aunt basically accusing her of not being apart of the family and not caring about anyone but herself since she hasn’t even seen her dad in the hospital. This was the first my friend had ever even heard he was sick! She hadn’t heard from her dad in months. he didn’t come to his grandsons birthday party like he promised, and he didn’t even call to say Merry Christmas. She was devastated about all of that, and now even more so finding out he was in the hospital. It turns out, he’s been in the hospital since Christmas Eve, and was taken in by her sister who didn’t even have the common decency to call her and tell her! Her sister blamed my friend for this saying she didn’t want anything to do with the family anymore and that this is her fault that her dad was basically dying in the hospital…

To recap all of this, it’s important to know a few things. One my friend wanted to form a relationship, but due to addiction and unhealthy relationships, it didn’t work out. A relationship cannot be one sided. It takes two people at least. She had been hurt many times by her sister, causing that relationship to pretty much end entirely. She cared deeply for her dad and wanted to have a relationship with him. She loved him. The trust was gone and he didn’t make her a better person, but she didn’t care because he was her father. Her whole life she has been given false promises, hate, ridicule, you name it. She washed her hands of everyone, as hard as that is to do, but still cared deeply about her father. This can happen to anyone, and if it does, it’s not your fault.

You have to look out for yourself. No one else will. You have to make the tough decisions for your own sanity and well-being. As evidence by my friends sister, you become who you hang around. Everyday we make choices. We choose what we want to become. My friend made the choice to be something. To constantly improve. To look for love and to not give up. To know her self worth and understand that just because there are a few bad apples in her family and it seems she’s been dealt a shitty hand, that doesn’t mean everyone in the world is like that. She understood that she’s not perfect, but in order to get better, she had to separate herself from those holding her back. She had to cut the rope attached to the anchor that continued to try and drown her. She blames herself for many things and she finds it hard to keep fighting even though she made the right decision years ago. You can do the same thing too. Don’t let people hold you back. Just because they are blood, doesn’t make them family. Just because they aren’t blood, doesn’t mean they can’t be family. It’s your life and your choice, make the right one and keep fighting.