I’ve been telling a lot of my sad stories lately. Rubbing my sadness and uncertainty between my fingers like a smooth stone. Sometimes it’s all a little much, this sad show I can put on. There is a special kind of joy that comes out of being unconventional, in finding yourself in unexpected places, with people you are lucky enough to have found in your life.
Lately for me, there has been a kind of happiness I had not been paying attention to. With a family like mine you find yourself drawing family trees, an explanation. For years I would find myself being almost apologetic for my situation, or find myself presenting my family as a good story (which, it is). I’ll raise your nuclear family 3 half-siblings (technically). There are confusing roles in our family that don’t fit well under labels – “step daughter (but, not my current husband’s daughter)”, “my sister’s mother”, “my Kathy”. Lately, anyways, we’ve defied these labels in a wonderful way.
Somehow out of the chaos I find myself laughing on the phone with my older sister, as we drink wine from our sister mugs. I notice that our laughs are kind of similar in a way, just like our shared intensity of feeling, our luck with men and tears. I find myself thinking that nothing could be so wrong in the world, with her in it. The first time I spent a significant amount of time with my brother, and his basset hounds, in years – driving through the Okanagan, I listened to him tell me that he would be there, when I needed him. I am his sister, and that means something, something special, my little sister would say. I was upset, when she told me that, holding her close. And she’s right you know, that bubbly smiling source of wisdom, we’re something special. An unapologetically complicated and beautiful tangle of relationships. Small miracles.
onemorecupofcoffee 