Stronger Than Blood is What I Need

I hurt. A weird sort of hurt I’ve never experienced before. It’s hard to explain, but I’ll start with this: I have a family. Well shit, that’s obvious, but I mean I have a close family. I’ve spent my entire life surrounded by three siblings, two parents, fourteen aunts and uncles, eighteen cousins, and six grandparents. The number fluctuates as people marry, have kids and die, I’ve also disowned a few family members but you get the point. As I get older I find myself drifting away from a lot of my family and I find myself re defining what that word means to me. Out of my enormous family there are very few I’m as close to now as I was as a child. My siblings, my mother, one grandparent, one uncle, and no cousins. The people who I no longer consider family fucked up very badly. It doesn’t matter what they did, but it’s their fault that I’ve been forced to re evaluate who my family really is. I guess I can thank them for that. I’m going to refer to these awful people as “family” to make things simple.

I have this friend, my best friend. She’s unfairly gorgeous and has this little happy dance that makes me smile at inappropriate times because I imagine it when I think about her. She makes me laugh a lot(I hyperventilated once because she made me laugh so hard) and she challenges me to be a more intelligent, better me. When I look at her I see more than a best friend, I see a sister in a way I don’t see my biological sister. She gives me something I could never express properly with words(but I'll try), something the siblings I share blood and flesh with could never hope to give me.

The bond we share is more important to me than almost anything and I could never hope to express how vital it is with words. I trust her with things I don’t think I’ll ever be able to trust anyone else with. Thanks to my “family” members, both when I was a child and now again as an adult, I have been forced to question my blood. After years of counseling and drugs and reassurance I was able to get over it, but again as an adult thanks to my “family” I’m on edge every time someone else is in the room with me, suspicious of everyone and questioning every person I’ve trusted and loved since I was born. I find myself retreating to my room constantly to avoid the thoughts, the disturbing “what ifs”. I sit in my cushion zone like I’m doing now and relax because I’m alone.

With her, this is never an issue. Our relationship is not based on memories and this is so unbelievably important.

I’ve been betrayed by people who held me as a small child, I recall looking at them with love and affection and the memories are joyful. When I think of who these people are now, I’m filled with a deep sadness and self loathing that I force down with disgust and hatred. I never feel tired when I’m with her, never suspicious or questioning. She is one of the only people of significance in my life I’ve never had a nightmare about. I don’t worry about betrayal or heartbreak with her.

I hurt because I can’t possibly explain to my biological family just how important she is. When with her I often find myself growing angry with them. How can they not see it? How can they not love her the way I love her? Why do they turn her away at vitally important moments and invite her in when it’s completely insignificant? Is it intentional?

Maybe just to make her see that the line is still there. That stupid line between friend and family that she can’t seem to cross because of the blood in her veins or the lack of legal documents in her hands. I want to scream at them, slap them across the face and hang her portrait on the wall along with our pictures. Or maybe tear the pictures down altogether. I want her to be there on Christmas and Thanksgiving, Halloween and every other stupid holiday!! Damn it all, I get so mad at them. I find myself thinking “Maybe I won’t be with them for Christmas this year” and imagine showing up on her doorstep at an ungodly hour Christmas morning. Starbucks coffee in hand and slippers on my feet because shoes were too much of a hassle. Laughing but then immediately apologizing for scaring her because I showed up completely unannounced and-

Fuck I’m totally off topic now, but these are the kinds of thoughts I’ve had more and more often ever since that camping trip. The trip that changed my life and presented me with the best friend the world has to offer.

I have to take a deep breath and remember that my immediate family hasn’t experienced what I have. They don’t know how family could betray them. They have no need for a different kind of family, a better family.

My best friend is my better family. I just want her to know that.