family

I've been thinking about family a lot lately (major holidays will do that to a person). I think all of my life, my definition of "family" has been a wide one. Our "family" gatherings consistently included 50-plus people, both because my grandparents happened to be incredibly fertile and because the Nipps just take people in. There are aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings and children and parents and grandparents at these events, and there are also in-laws and random friends and foreign exchange students and BabyDaddies and knocked-up girlfriends and next-door neighbors too.

On our "family" vacations, you could almost always find one or more stray cousins or friends who came along for the ride. For that week, and for a long time afterwards, they were family, too.

My mom did daycare in our home, so "family" included a rotating roster of 11 "siblings", all but one of whom just happened not to have their own bedroom. I ate with them and played with them and napped with them and watched those kids grow up, and helped a little bit, too. You can't tell me Jennifer and Dana and Justin and Kevin and Tina and Brian and Nathan and Ryan and Jillian and Erica aren't family.

And my family had its issues, like every family, so home wasn't always the place where I could find my teenaged sanctuary. So I adopted some other families, who graciously took me in as my family had enveloped others. And eventually I came to realize that in the algorithm of "family", blood isn't really a factor at all. I have a long, long list of roommates and friends and loved ones who are undisputably family now.

YOU are my family. I'm so thankful for you. :-)