The terms “blood is thicker than water,” and “you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family,” are our clichés that a lot of us tell ourselves on multiple occasions. If you come from a “normal” family, chances are it is not the picture-perfect “Leave It to Beaver” family but rather a chaotic “Modern Family.” You probably have that annoying aunt who nags about anything and everything; A younger sibling who annoys you to no end; A cousin who you’re super close with and is your saving grace at family functions; Another cousin who you might be competitive with and you’re trying to one-up them in hopes of getting a better spot on Grandma and Grandpa’s will; A crazy Uncle who annoys everyone in the family, but you still have to invite him to the family functions. And last but not least a wonderful mother who tries to keep the family dynamics at a normalized version of what she hoped her family life would be.
Throughout the chaotic mess and stress family can bring, this is why you can’t live without them.
For every headache, there are a number of laughs.
After family dinners, chances are you realized one of the complaints that your nagging Aunt ranted about. After reviewing it with the rest of your family members, you just shake your head and laugh about it for years to come. You might then also realize that your Grandpa had to add in another story about his time in Vietnam, or better yet the infamous “I walked uphill to school both ways, in the snow…” as an annoying, repetitive story that was always told at dinner. But later, you’ll think about it and you might even use the same lines to tell your kids later in the day.
At the end of the day, they’re the ones that will be there for you.
Sometimes in life, we can only count on our loved ones. They continuously prove to us that they always have our sides and our best interests at heart, even when we don’t realize it. We may think our family continuously nags us and does everything in their power to annoy us to the point of pulling our hair out. After the nagging is over and the storm has calmed down, they are our biggest fans who only want what’s best for us and will stop at nothing until they know they can help us achieve success.
They’ll always remind you about your roots.
Take it from someone like me. Though I am born and raised in Washington, they never let me forget about my roots in Hawaii, and my family history there. At this day in age, social media helps with being able to keep up to date with the happenings in our families lives. Through small gestures like Facebook messages, comments, etc., they’re a constant reminder that somewhere where your roots are is a fam that’s there to always keep you grounded and to love on you extra.
They’re a great source of entertainment.
As I mentioned earlier, there’s always one or several family members that are absolute lunatics. Whether it’s an uncle in prison, the aunt that likes to stir up political trouble on Facebook, or the cousin who’s constantly blabbing your secrets to Grandma and Grandpa—they’re always a great source of entertainment and can make the disastrous holidays one for the books. After all, they may be the reason you drank a whole bottle of wine on Thanksgiving.
There’s no other group of people in the world you annoyingly love more.
At the end of the day, family is all we have. Family members are the people who have been there since the start, and whether you like it or not they’re going to be there until the end. They love you unconditionally, they put up with you as you put up with them, and they’re characters in the story you tell all of the outsiders. Blood really is thicker than water, but if you’re lucky, you just might be happy with the family members you didn’t get the chance to choose.
