Before I get into what I wish to share this week, I have important learning to share. ‘Mental notes’ is a lie. I almost forgot the entire idea for this week’s post because I believed that I have made a mental note of it and I’ll remember when I sit to pen it down.
When I got the idea I was in a Mumbai local train and I didn’t have space to write in my journal as I would ideally do. My phone’s battery was dead so I decided I’ll make a mental note of it. I imagined I wrote it in a book in hope that I’ll remember.
Sunday morning I sit to write down my post, I have no clue of what that note was. Surprisingly I remembered the details of the book I had imagined I wrote the note in. I began doing weekend chores and finally remembered.
A while ago someone had asked me to choose between friends or family. We were on a bus returning from a big trip and clearly were out of all options to entertain ourselves. We shared a lot of our lives and socialized like humans and reached this question.
‘I didn’t choose the family I got into but I do choose the friends I hang out with and hence I put my friends over my family’ I was ignoring this friends/family discussion until this statement reached my ears.
Firstly, the logic behind that statement failed to reach my brain. I tried hard to get what it meant but failed. Today, years after, I finally understand a bit what this person tried to say.
I belong to a four people household, mom dad sister and me. A broken unit of four individuals who make what is commonly understood as a disorderly family. I didn’t choose to be part of this household but I have found my family because I was born into this unit.
The first person part of the unit I have come to call my family is my mom. She has been and will always be my biggest storehouse of strength and inspiration. The one thing I have taken from mom is a progressive outlook to everything. She has never been content with what life gave her and has constantly improved the graph of her life.
The next person I consider family is my mami. She is the wife of one of my mother’s younger brothers. I’ve from childhood been close to her. She is the only person whose presence makes me love food. It is only food made by her I actually eat with a smile. That’s the vibe I try to imbibe from her someday. Where I am able to spread so much of positive vibes that it makes someone like me also eat and cherish food I don’t like.
Then the next in line whom I consider family is my elder cousin, Sanish. He has similar vibes that of his mother. But importantly he is the one from whom I try to learn how to keep someone else before me. His name appears in many of my blogs, indeed a source and witness of a lot that I have come to become today.
My little family can’t be complete without my younger cousin, Sachin. The jovial thread who bind us five together. My go-to person whenever in need to feel happy, to feel good about me and life at large. I don’t think I can ever learn to be how carefree he is. But I wish I learn from him how to make myself a priority over everything else in life.
Apart from this, there are two people who live abroad who I consider family. That’s my small chosen family. I’ve found parts of me in each of them and I couldn’t be more grateful. Over a span of the last three years, we five got knit together due to many different threads that broke, threads that changed colours and much more that happened. More importantly, each of us grew together and got woven in each other’s life.
I don’t know what future beholds, but I am glad for that girl who told me that she chooses her friends and so they mean more to her. Today, I feel I have chosen family out of the unit of individuals I was born into and they are special.
And the weekend chore that made me remember my post idea was when five of us were in our car heading to eat breakfast. The entire drive there I penned the crux of it and this little family breakfast convinced me more to write this down today.
A family is something, personal, close to everyone. I only hope that you find a family, either in the unit you are born into or like me in a mixture of individuals you are related to. There is a different solace in finding a family and I am glad I found mine.