Mish - "Your definition of 'family'"
This is probably going to be a short one.
Family are the people to whom you have a personal connection and wish well.
You may not see them often, you may end up having 'discussions' more times than not when you do but in the end it's people you care about.
This might mean that you end up with those you're genetically related to not counting (I'm fortunatly not in this boat) and a whole bunch of people who are family by choice.
I have three groups of family I guess if I sit and think about it; immediate blood family of parents and brother, extended blood family of 1 uncle, 2 aunts and 2 cousins, then there's the friends I have made, some I see nearly every day and some I see about 4 times a year or less. They are people who I'm happy when they have good things happen and sad and wonder if / how I can help if there's bad.
That's less of the definition than the categorisation but still. These are the people I might cry over (admittedly only one person has made me cry since I was 16, though it's either directly or by being a bit too close to the mark made it happened 4 times now) and the people whom I've lost sleep / actually wound up getting stressed from worrying about (this time it's two people).
They're also the people who have made me feel proud, comfortable, cared for, loved, secure and able to be myself (mostly) around.
Family are the people to whom you have a personal connection and wish well.
You may not see them often, you may end up having 'discussions' more times than not when you do but in the end it's people you care about.
This might mean that you end up with those you're genetically related to not counting (I'm fortunatly not in this boat) and a whole bunch of people who are family by choice.
I have three groups of family I guess if I sit and think about it; immediate blood family of parents and brother, extended blood family of 1 uncle, 2 aunts and 2 cousins, then there's the friends I have made, some I see nearly every day and some I see about 4 times a year or less. They are people who I'm happy when they have good things happen and sad and wonder if / how I can help if there's bad.
That's less of the definition than the categorisation but still. These are the people I might cry over (admittedly only one person has made me cry since I was 16, though it's either directly or by being a bit too close to the mark made it happened 4 times now) and the people whom I've lost sleep / actually wound up getting stressed from worrying about (this time it's two people).
They're also the people who have made me feel proud, comfortable, cared for, loved, secure and able to be myself (mostly) around.