Cause and Effect...

I have had the privilege of connecting with so many of my family members this week; family by blood and by previous marriage. All of them are amazing and for some reason they all love the hell out of me; so for that I am truly grateful. I've been extremely honored to have maintained a relationship with my step children, and even though the marriage between their father and I ended, my love and concern for them has never wavered.

Watching them grow up from afar has been bittersweet; while I'm proud of how far they've come considering their circumstances, I still cannot help but to feel regret for not being there. As adults, we become so consumed with our own madness, that we don't take into account the effects that it has on our children. What we decide in our lives instantly becomes their reality, and more often than not that reality profoundly impacts their lives in a negative way. I will have to live with the pain of my choices forever, and unfortunately, so will my children. All I can do is ask that they one day forgive, and that they strive to be better parents than their own.

Everyone has their own story about family; some are picture perfect and others are so awful that Steven King would be terrified to write about it. But yet we're here, living and breathing and hopefully more evolved versions of our namesakes. I'm learning with every conversation that I have with my own family, that having them is an essential element for a healthy life. Without family, what do I have to identify with? How would I ever know where my personality comes from, why I'm able to sense when something good or bad is coming, or why people get on my effin nerves. Who else would be able to understand my craziness and not condemn me for it. I get it now, it took moving 3,000 miles away for it to slap me upside the head, but I get it. I need my family, and they need me.

My mother was the greatest woman I have ever known; she always had a way of saying things in the simplest terms, but yet they stuck with you forever. One day while I was crying and sitting at her feet, she took my hands and said; "Our family is like roaches....the world around us can fall apart but we'll still be here." That was her way of telling me that no matter how bad things in my life get, my family will be there to help pick up the pieces. And she was right.

So today, and every day, I celebrate my family. We're an odd bunch, and a mixed bag of crazy, but our bond is cemented in the heavens. T-320