No one ever tells you that the people you call “family” will eventually change. One day you’ll no longer go to sleep with your sister in the bed next to you or wake up to your dad leaving for work and your mom packing school lunches.
It seems that all of a sudden, without us noticing, we grow up and we have this new “family”. A steady boyfriend, or husband, a couple of dogs, eventually a child, and we realize that the initial family we had isn’t around the way they used to be.
Of course our family is still our family; mom and dad only live an hour away and we can visit when we want. We still see them and our siblings at holidays and other important events.
But the people we live out our little monotonous daily lives with changes, almost completely.
It can be a scary feeling, especially once we start thinking about how the people we choose to surround ourselves with now will eventually be the only ones on this earth that we share a connection with in a familial way.
I think about how someday, (knock wood), my parents will no longer be just an hour away. They will be gone. And all I will have left in this world is the man I choose to be my husband, our children and maybe some doggies or kitties (pick your poison, they’re all little shits but we love them).
It’s a daunting feeling, a feeling that sneaks up on you and makes you really think about who you want in your life and who you want to be by your side when all the people who you began life with are no longer here.
When it hit me I initially felt very overwhelmed, and a little sad thinking about not having my parents and my siblings around me.
Then a wave of warmth came over me when I thought about the ones I’ve chosen to live out my days with; the insanely smart, deaf aussie who we call “princess”, our goofy mutt puppy, Archer and the wonderful, handsome man that I hope to someday marry and begin our own family with.
So yeah, they don’t tell you that someday the ones you began this life with will pass on and only be with you in your heart.
But they also don’t tell you the immense love you will feel for the new little family you create from the ground up.
What Nobody Told Us 