Family

T and I had a very late night last night hanging out with some friends in Holyoke. We had an amazing time, and the cherry on top was that we won the Pictionary game with both teams poised on the last square together. It came down to an all play, and T rocked the house and we won. For anyone who knows me, you know that I am not competitive at all. And winning a game doesn't increase the amount of fun I have. Oh, and I actually like losing and handle it well. Right.

I've been thinking a lot about family lately: my new wife, my sister as a mother, my mother as a grandmother, preparing to lose my last grandparent, two new brothers-in-law, reconnecting with a long lost cousin, another set of parents, planning a family of my own. I've also been thinking about friends as family, family of origin v. creating a family. When I was coming out, and as I've comforted friends who are coming out, there was a lot of time to think about people who are not related by blood, but for whom you have such unconditional love that you can't imagine they were not, in some former incarnation, your sister or brother. To those people, and to my family, I love you. Thank you. Endlessly.

To Mom and Dad, thank you for everything you've given me, even if what you gave me was not giving me the thing I thought I needed that I didn't actually need. For making me sit at the dining room table and do homework, and giving me chores. Thank you for all of the driving vacations we took as kids. Thank you for endless hours of sitting on the porch playing jumprope and eating homemade popsicles. Thank you for teaching me how to cook and love flowers and hard work and responsibility. Thank you for driving me to softball for ten years, and paying for college, and for the cross-country trip. Thank you for teaching me about Vietnam and taking me to tet celebrations. Thank you for the unfettered joy you show around H.

To S: Thank you for being my sister, my best friend like no other could be. Thank you for sharing a brain, for completing my sentences, for all the counsel. Thank you for being my go-to gal for opinions, ideas, thoughts. Thank you for the united front when were kids. Thank you for teaching me about feminism and love and forgiveness. Thank you for your wit, bringing D into our family, for your son. Thank you for the infinite hours we've spent laughing, crying, talking, chatting, being catty. Thank you for allowing me to see H being born. Thank you for opening your arms to T and letting me hog H in Florida. Thank you for making playing with Dad's army guys at 27 and 30 just as much fun as when we were 10. Thank you for teaching me to laugh until I cry.

To H: Thank you for teaching me how love can be so complicated and so simple at the same time. Thank you for teaching me about a depth of love I could not have fathomed before you came into this world, the kind of love that allows me to love others more deeply and freely. Thank you for letting me watch you discover things, or watch you fixate on the smallest, apparently most fascinating thing in the world. Thank you for your blue eyes, your laugh, your squeal, the mole on your arm. Thank you for making it through surgery like a rock star. Thank you for all of the million things I'll discover with you as you grow older.

To T: Thank you for your love. For holding me at night. For waking me up tenderly in the morning. Thank you for sharing your life with me, and inviting me to share mine. Thank you for househunting, cooking, vacationing, walking, lounging with me. Thank you for teaching me how to relax, how to trust, how to love someone so fully I almost burst. Thank you for squabbling with me, and helping me think through problems. Thank you for listening to me when I talk about my hardships and the other things I struggle with. Thank you for holding me and letting me cry when I found out my grandmother is dying. Thank you for waiting on the other side of the train tracks for me that day I came home to you. Thank you for always being there. For never checking out. For being steady and laughing.

For J: I'm not sure I tell you enough how much I love you. Being with you is like being with myself. I can share with you from the most unrestrained place of myself: give no context, background or story. You get it. Thank you for working hard, for your perspective, for allowing yourself to heal. Thank you for teaching me how to take care of myself, or at least try. Thank you for telling me I deserve things and taking good care of me. Thank you for allowing me to grow. Thank you for Lori McKenna, your chocolate chip cookies, and mix tapes. Thank you for making me laugh, especially at myself. Thank you for sharing your vulnerability with me, for letting me love you even when it's hard for you to do so, for your sarcasm. Thank you for how graceful you've been shouldering some of the most difficult things a person can face in this world. Thank you for appreciating this stage of the cocoon. Thank you for going to the prom with me my senior year, and for not allowing us to go tearing out of that parking lot together at the last moment. Thank you for letting my family accept you as our own. Thank you for trusting me.

Without all of you I would not be where I am in my life. I love you all.