I love that relieved yet satisfied feeling you get after a long day with family!
We made more cookies! It was controlled chaos! I loved it!
I think my favorite part though was that our blended family came together. No, not the one you think. See, I come from a blended family. My father was married twice before meeting and marrying my mom. I have two brothers (one deceased) from his first marriage and a sister, with whom I am very close, from his second.
My sister, her children, and her mom joined us today. This isn't a first though it's also not extraordinarily often either. It was great! Her mom and mine always get along great and it was so beautiful. While some blended families can only manage for civility or worse veiled contempt, I love it when I see it work. It honestly wasn't always that way but people grow, they forgive, and they change.
While our own little blended family certainly isn't one of drama, we also aren't paling around together. I love when blended families really blend. It doesn't always happen and it doesn't have to, I just really love it when it does. I won't air out the personal lives of my family but I will say that the situation itself was tough. For everyone. People are people, they hurt each other. So when I tell you it's beautiful, it's because people have let stuff go. It wasn't as though it was always family get togethers and happy smiles.
Family is messy. I could tell that ours has some war wounds, serious scars, and some healing that we've all done. It has had it's ugly times but the only way to be a family is going through the ugly. We're not perfect at it, not even by a long shot but these times when we come together are so blessed and so good. It's my goal for my own "blended family". That we can show our kids how truly beautiful it can be.
Our parents have shown us what it means to put aside those wounds and create memories for generations to cherish. Love that breeds love. I want to show that to my children. That life is far too short and that so much more can be built with love than anger. The memories created today I will cherish. We played, we laughed, we talked, we loved. It was great. Our kids built relationships and had no idea that there was ever pain there. That "blended family" is honestly just more family. See the "blended" often means something opposite. It means two families that are apart, - not intermingling.
I see it like this: each family is often a different entree with a common ingredient not many ingredients of the same dish. Truthfully, we can't always be in unison but I think it's important not to write it off. Infinity goes both ways, meaning there are many chances for moments in your life. One may pass but another will come around. By shutting out the idea you can turn yourself away from some true beauty. It doesn't happen overnight, that healing has to occur first and people have to want to heal. My hope is that people keep an open (albeit guarded) heart.
We made more cookies! It was controlled chaos! I loved it!
I think my favorite part though was that our blended family came together. No, not the one you think. See, I come from a blended family. My father was married twice before meeting and marrying my mom. I have two brothers (one deceased) from his first marriage and a sister, with whom I am very close, from his second.
My sister, her children, and her mom joined us today. This isn't a first though it's also not extraordinarily often either. It was great! Her mom and mine always get along great and it was so beautiful. While some blended families can only manage for civility or worse veiled contempt, I love it when I see it work. It honestly wasn't always that way but people grow, they forgive, and they change.
While our own little blended family certainly isn't one of drama, we also aren't paling around together. I love when blended families really blend. It doesn't always happen and it doesn't have to, I just really love it when it does. I won't air out the personal lives of my family but I will say that the situation itself was tough. For everyone. People are people, they hurt each other. So when I tell you it's beautiful, it's because people have let stuff go. It wasn't as though it was always family get togethers and happy smiles.
Family is messy. I could tell that ours has some war wounds, serious scars, and some healing that we've all done. It has had it's ugly times but the only way to be a family is going through the ugly. We're not perfect at it, not even by a long shot but these times when we come together are so blessed and so good. It's my goal for my own "blended family". That we can show our kids how truly beautiful it can be.
Our parents have shown us what it means to put aside those wounds and create memories for generations to cherish. Love that breeds love. I want to show that to my children. That life is far too short and that so much more can be built with love than anger. The memories created today I will cherish. We played, we laughed, we talked, we loved. It was great. Our kids built relationships and had no idea that there was ever pain there. That "blended family" is honestly just more family. See the "blended" often means something opposite. It means two families that are apart, - not intermingling.
I see it like this: each family is often a different entree with a common ingredient not many ingredients of the same dish. Truthfully, we can't always be in unison but I think it's important not to write it off. Infinity goes both ways, meaning there are many chances for moments in your life. One may pass but another will come around. By shutting out the idea you can turn yourself away from some true beauty. It doesn't happen overnight, that healing has to occur first and people have to want to heal. My hope is that people keep an open (albeit guarded) heart.
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