"Framily"

Six years ago I sat in premarital counseling with Paul and was issued a difficult assignment. 

Create a family tree. 

What??? A family tree? I needed a forest. How did I decide what family to include? Sure, I start with my nuclear family - Mom, Dad, Siblings, Grandparents - that's a good place to start right? Well crap. I don't talk to my mom, between my 3 siblings, we have 3 different moms, I have six grandparents, but I don't know much about 4 of them. Ah my head is already spinning. 

Okay, let's just focus on the "family" that's involved in my everyday life. Not necessarily blood relation, but the people I "do life" with. Okay so that includes my grandparents, they raised me, their friends that have been around the last 40 years and their kids and grand-kids. So now my "tree" was filled with people I lovingly called "aunt" or "cousin." I was good with it, I mean that's who I treated as family, but it still made no sense in tree form. 

This is just the tip of the iceberg. And this is why I failed that assignment. Not only could I not create a family tree, I couldn't define what family was to me or what the criteria for being "family" was. It was all too complicated.

So I didn't. I just didn't label it, I didn't define it and I sure as heck didn't over complicate it. I just continued to "do life" with the people I love. 

"Framily."

This morning my grandmother used the word "Framily." and it really got me thinking. At first I thought it was the perfect way to describe how complicated my family tree was; beyond our traditional family branches, were extended family branches, and then the friends-turned-family branches. 

This is how I will describe it going forward. Framily are the people that may or may not be related to me - but they are relate-able to me. We may not share ancestors or blood type; but we share joys, sorrows and life. It's not about where we come from as much as where we can go together. 

I can draw a family tree today. It would be a beautiful portrait of the people who are involved in my life. The people who support me, encourage me, influence me and love me. These people love my husband and my kids. The same way my grandmother's friends adopted me as "niece" my best friend has adopted my girls as her nieces. It's about love.

"We are all a little weird, and life's a little weird. And when we find someone who's weirdness is compatible with ours, we fall in mutual weirdness and call it love." 

Dr. Seuss