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The Family Truth by C.N. Smallwood Who constructed the view of families as a holy, almost religious and glorious personification? Families have always been quite the opposite. Despite the old photos of American nuclear families with a smiling mother and father with children, their only common qualities are blood and an absence of uniqueness. It was rather different before in the times where people were thought of as undeveloped. These families consisted of several families creating a clan or tribe with the duty to protect one’s own kin. Of course given this there was also an absence of singularity. Cooperation was necessary and if not used, the person was considered useless. Everyone worked toward a common goal. But why hasn’t a family ever been a group of people who do not share blood or common characteristics. They hold each a uniqueness and dysfunction along with them, but in spite of these facts they remain loving, although a rather chaotic yet unconditional love it would be. Families are not holy and glorious. They are disasters in the mist, emotions and feelings of individual souls flowing chaotically together like a tropical storm. They are messy and wild and impossible to get rid of. Although they may hold a quiet outward appearance, humans are not holy or glorious and if you love someone you will fight with them. I came upon the topic of families – disregarding my own – while in my sophomore year of college. At only eighteen, I was the youngest among my second family which consisted of several other students. Friends, but not quite, I found it an impossible task to rid myself of some of them despite their offensive tendencies. It was a sort of unspoken bond tied between all of us. Even while we drove each other up the walls and straight out mad, we would still speak and attempt to keep the bonds. Of course not all bonds are that of family, some melted away as they should like wax disguised as rope. However a gravitation seemed to exist that one could simply not shake off. I recall Jordan, an art major in her ending teens with blue streaks in her hair and piercings in her lip and nose. A rather cheerful person who much like myself was racked the instability of anxiety and depressions. We became friends quickly. Throughout the first two semesters of our friendship we were both walking on ice like a deer trying to get a feel for the solid steps. However in the middle of spring semester she became distant. I understood, the need for one to possess their own space. She mistook my distance as dislike and I did the same. We finally miss-stepped and fell into the ice. Our friendship coming to an end through an overreaction. We did not speak over the summer. The beginning of my sophomore year, on the second day of school we met once again. Like several times before I expected melted wax hardening into a rough puddle, but I was wrong. We embraced and forgave helping each other escape the ice as if a steel rod hung above to pull us out. This is when I came upon a realization of family that is not of blood. A group of people possessing dysfunction, but remaining together through invisible ties so that it takes heavy sawing to break. That is a family. |
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