The way I roll...

I love my family.  That's the way I roll.  Some people have amazing, connected families.  I wish I could claim that.  My brothers and sister and I are connected through love of each other and trials that we have shared, and my dad is great.  Ever senile, but still great.  My nuclear family has been extremely disfunctional my entire life, which doesn't surprise me, because there is no such thing as a normal family.  I do, however, tend to get overanimated when it comes to my mother.  It's so Freudian, isn't it?  Blame it on the mother.  That's where the problems lie.  People think that Freud was a whack job, and yes, he was, but the whole mother connection thing does have validation.  I don't think that we all have Oedipal complexes, but I do think that there is something to be said about the relationship that is formed or not formed between a child and their mother.  The fact that I still ache for a connection with my mother tells me that it cannot be taken lightly, regardless of the trauma that happens in a child's life.  The fact that I care so much about someone else's actions means that even when I deny giving a shit, I still do.

They tell you, "You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family."  I say that is wrong, wrong, wrong.  I picked my husband.  I picked my friends, who are more like family to myself, my husband, and my kids than some of my blood relatives.  Maybe they picked me.  Who knows?  But the bond of mother and daughter can be broken.  It is flexible and bounds back from distress, to be sure, but I am now the mother.  My first instinct now is to my own children.  To protect them, love them, teach them, and to help them grow.  I feel that the most important thing for my children is to be loved, unconditionally. Yes, they piss me off sometimes.  It's bound to happen.  We will argue, we will fight, there will be yelling, and tears at points throughout their lives.  But the one thing that they will NEVER do is question my love for them.  I will spend my life showing them, through my actions, what unconditional love is.