This Family Rocks

Sometimes I struggle with the nature and purpose of this blog. Why do I do this? Is it a forum just for me or do I have an audience mentality as I write? Is the purpose of 45 Pines to be about hobbies and the mundane details of my life or is it more about the bigger picture of my existence? What if its only purpose is self-expression? Is that a valid enough reason to share it or should it be confined to a locked book under my mattress? If it's only self-expression that I'm affirming, then why post it for everyone to read?

I've been thinking more about these kinds of things since getting home from vacation. In some ways, the week that we just spent in Wisconsin has changed much about me. I think it changed Ali as well.

To be completely honest, we went up there not knowing what to expect.

It's no secret that I've been estranged from my family - particularly my parents - for quite some time. But the feelings of estrangement go farther back than that. My dad moved us from Kentucky (where I had grown up and where all my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins were) to northwest Ohio 27 years ago. We had little money or time to make the trip down to see everyone very often after that. I went to college up here and eventually got a job and the years just slipped by.

It's not that I ever lost touch with my family. It's just that when you don't see people often you lose track of all the things you once shared in common.

After coming out to my parents and having that go so completely wrong I hesitated to put myself out there with other people for awhile. I had an inkling that things would be OK with the rest of the family but I just didn't want to risk that kind of pain again. So, years passed.

Then Gramma got sick.

She was like the sun to our planets. Her gravitational pull kept us aligned and spinning together as a family system in an intricate dance.

It was her funeral that took us to Wisconsin. And it was there that I felt "family" again.

To be honest, at some moments it was overwhelming. Everywhere you looked, everywhere you went there were Pikes and Curtis' – Pedersons were all over the place too. Our cabin was "party central" so nights dragged on til midnight - full of cribbage, beer, Trivial Pursuit and stories. Ali and I awoke each morning with stomachs sore from so much laughter the night before and whispers (lest we woke our rooomies!) about the wonderfully crazy people who were sharing our week.

We felt unconditionally loved. And, the crazy part for me is that we felt it from biological family.

And that brings me back to why I write this blog. I want to say thank you. And say it out loud.

This family, however extended it may be, rocks.