Family is What you Make It! ( Re-discovered writings)

Family is what you make it! ( Re-discovered writings from a while ago)

The upcoming holiday season brings with it both new and old challenges for LGBTQ folks. As the egg nog pours and the shopping frenzies ensue, many of us will find ourselves faced with the option of returning home to our biological families. Even still, many of us will also be forced to face the harsh reality of not having that option.

Yet if we look around, and into ourselves, we are sure to find there is someone who deeply cares for us the way only a family member can.

Sometimes it's our best friend, or "judy-judy". Sometimes it's our "house" members, or "queer family." It could also be a counselor, a caretaker, or a co-worker. Whoever it is, remember that family is what you make it!

For example, in our communities many of us have created extensive fictive kin networks to support ourselves. Though these networks can often, just like our real family, pull stunts and shows (literally), there are still times when some member of our fictive kin was there when no-one else was. They may have offered a smile, a place to stay, an encouraging “U betta work!" or a shoulder to lean on. They may have provided some money, some time, or even better, some belly bursting laughter. Remember them! Thank them for their love or support.

Even if you can't do it personally, do it in your heart. It can make all the difference.

And it doesn't have to stop there. If you are not with your biological family, or even if you are,

hold a "family dinner" for your loved ones and fictive kin members. Get together and spend a day preparing a meal, eating in fellowship, and lounging around afterwards playing board games or watching a movie. Make a thank you wall to help you remember how far you all have come, and what each of you has made it through. Review the lessons of the year and make personal commitments to breaking cycles and patterns of destructive behavior.

Last but not least, forgive. Forgiveness is the act of releasing the anger we have held towards others in the past, in order to embrace the beauty and opportunity available in the present. It can be the easiest thing to say, yet sometimes the hardest thing to do. Still, work on forgiving your family members, fictive or biological, for who they were and who they were not able to be. Though it’s hard for some of us too see it that way, our family members, especially our parents, are individuals just like us. They have pain, issues, fears and problems just like we do. Like us they also may have made poor, or imbalanced decisions. Yet everyone is worthy of forgiveness and compassion. And there's no better time to start forgiving then now.

The holidays are here people! And now we have a decision to make. We can decide to spend this season focusing on "if only’s”, or we can make the choice to focus on and embrace what we have. And what we have, each of us, is someone out there, who loves and cares and worries about us, whether we know or realize it or not. Whether they show it the way we want them too, or whether they are able to show it at all. We have family. Because when we open our hearts, our minds, and our arms to ourselves and each other, family becomes not just what we make it, but ends up being who we are.

Happy Holidays!!