Family is important. It’s the first social group we belong to. Much is learned from this early unit – irrespective of its composition or boundaries – including role responsibilities, boundaries and how to negotiate with others. However, with age comes the freedom to create our own milieu.
I don’t have a problem with family, many of my best times have been spent with my parents and cousins. In fact, as I sit and write these words, the days that I hanker for most are the simplest ones that involve drinking tea and eating cake with my mother and gran. But since they both passed, my family has somewhat dispersed. What once was is no more. I have found myself in an amorphous group connected by blood. And this group, comprising aunts, uncles and cousins, often does not represent me. Some of them do, as individuals, but not as the collective known as the Family.