This Year’s Gratitude: The Family You Choose
A thank you to those who are close by choice
As 2020 winds down, moving into a socially-distanced holiday season where many will not be seeing their families or traveling outside of their homes, we are met with a unique opportunity to appreciate the other connections in our lives. For me, taking obligatory family gatherings off the table has allowed for time to reflect on what I am most grateful for this year: the family you choose along the way.
Many will balk at this and fall back on the old adage “blood is thicker than water” to supplant blood family above other relationships, but this unnecessarily discounts the bonds we get to choose along the way. Our friends, colleagues, and romantic partners become our confidants, business partners, champions, sympathetic ears, and allies in commiseration as we navigate life. In these relationships we find the freedom from the weight of a lifetime’s worth of history and grievances with family, so often suppressed to maintain a comfortably uncomfortable familial harmony.
Ironically, our push to force blood relatives to be the most important relationships in our lives may best be exemplified by the history of the phrase “blood is thicker than water” itself. The full original saying goes “the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb,” meaning precisely the opposite of the colloquial interpretation we use today. This year, I raise my glass to all those with whom I have made a (metaphorical) blood pact: the family I gained through romantic partnership, through workplace connections, through pursuing passions, and through friends.
To my in-common-laws (yes, that is the phrase I’ve coined for the family of long-term-but-not-officially-married partners), thank you for always welcoming me with open arms. I’ve only known hospitality from you from the beginning, and you’ve expanded my personal definition of family. Most importantly, that definition now includes the one activity that perfectly encapsulates our relationship: taking a dog walk with a white claw in hand, talking politics and commenting on what houses we like and don’t like in the neighborhood. For the record, yes that paint is too dark, and no, I can’t believe they would put that whole addition on without adding windows. It’s a shame.
To my sister-in-common-law and brother-in-common-common-law (yes, my partner’s sister and her long-term-not-officially-married partner), here’s to our chosen co-ed fraternity — not only in bond and spirit, but also in the occasional drinking games and roof-top movie parties.
To my brother-in-common-law who we’ve gotten to share quarantine with, thank you for sharing some youth with us. You remind us of the adventure life is, and I always enjoy our shared tweets as well as shared obsession over elections. Here’s to some more grey (or just lost) hairs in 2 years.
To my co-workers, here’s to the waking hours we share throughout the week. Your openness and curiosity releases my own, and I’m grateful for this stretch of life’s path we get to walk together. If we all have to work 40 hours a week, may we be so lucky as to share this kind of comradery. Thank you for the lessons, thank you for the laughs, and thank you for the company.
To my past colleagues, whether we’ve shared a beer, a project, an argument, a lunch, a complaint, a knowing glance, or all of the above, that part of the journey has brought us here and I can’t help but know that I am lucky.
To my business partner, thank you for indulging in continual curiosity and discussion. I have no word other than ‘fun’ to describe developing theories on the working world, trying various implementations, and getting to see the change in our corner of the world spread. Doing the work has never felt less like work.
To my friends, old and new, here’s to the stories we tell, retell, and most importantly to the new ones we make.
To the performers, actors, writers, and comics I have known (past and present), I hope you are finding new ways to develop and express your immense talents. I am lucky to have spent any time developing creativity with you, and it’s incredible to see the success you are finding.
To those engaged in the pursuit of social justice and all activists I’ve met, thank you for all you have taught me. I’ve never felt more alive and less hopeless than when I get to work alongside you and share a common belief that change is possible and we can be that change. Thank you for helping me open my eyes and widen my sight beyond my personal circle. There’s a beautiful and complex world out there — here’s to sharing it with you.
To my cats, you didn’t get to choose me, but hopefully a lifetime of spoiling indulgence will ease your lack of autonomy in that matter. I love getting to pour endless affection into something just because I can, and nothing allows for that like animals. Now if you could get off my lap for a second, I’d like to finish this sentence on gratitude for you.
And last but most, to my partner in life (by choice and, by now, common law), it’s impossible simultaneously remember all of the pages of life we’ve written together, so let me highlight some themes. Above all, I am grateful for your ambition. This has fueled everything we have done, moving to other cities, starting massive ventures, going on vacations, diving deeper and deeper into what it means to Live with a capital-L. You’re the right co-pilot for this journey and luck is too small a word to encapsulate the fortune of sharing this life with you. Thank you.
Happy Thanksgiving, from me to my chosen family, I am grateful for you.
