Family

Here we are amongst family. It is different each time we come back. We always enjoy seeing everyone, filling in each other’s lives since we last saw or spoke to them. Sometimes, though, I find myself striving, most likely needlessly, to maintain the person I have become. I can be fiercely independent at times, and often push against being boxed in, so when I am back to a place that is where I was so young I instinctively want to press back against who I used to be. It creeps up on me trying to take away the energy I’ve found, trying to sap me of the adult I’ve become and turn me into a child again. Maybe some of you can understand. Sometimes we run away from those places to find ourselves, to see what we’re made of. It’s not an uncommon human response to life, found in even in ancient civilizations. Going on walkabouts, or tests to enter into being a warrior for the tribe infiltrated each society. I think in our modern society we all in some way seek that challenge and when met we want to be welcomed back as a contributing part of the clan. If the clan still acknowledges you as a child, it can be heartbreaking, but when they see you, all you can do and have become, and in turn acknowledge your independence within the whole, then life can continue on in a healthy fashion. From early on, we mold our children, we take them and teach them how to behave, and what priorities make life worthwhile. But someday, we let them go, into the world and can only hope that when they come back to us they carry a bit of us along, adding, growing, and multiplying themselves as persons able to care for themselves, their family, and their community. I like to believe that my husband and I have done this, and so when we return to find family that treats us as we have in fact accomplished this, we are content.