Family
to me, is defined as the people I can count on to always accept, support, and
love me, regardless of my actions, behaviors, etc. In addition, family
describes the people I am stuck with, or rather, blessed with since we do not
exactly get to choose who we want to be in our family, but are born, or adopted
into them. Although I know this is not the case for everyone, this is what I
have learned through my family. I also see family as not just our immediate
family, but includes our closest friends that have been there for us through
thick and thin, that we can trust and confide in, and know they will always have
our backs. Families offer support, love, trust, advice, acceptance, etc. I
agree that families are no longer strictly blood and kin, but include other
types we form socially since not all blood families are ideal and healthy. I
found the descriptions of substitute, supplemental, convenience, and extended
families all pretty accurate. I think I have experienced each of these, especially
supplemental family since a lot of my close girlfriends are like the sisters I have
always wanted.
I feel very similarly to your opening on family, but i was wondering if you consider family to be just brother, cousin, parents, or anything along those lines. Do you consider a close friend to be like family or a longterm boy/girlfriend to be family as well? I know see that you said that in your blog post which i somehow missed on my first read through, oh well. I agree that close friends can almost seem like a brother or sister. My two best friends from high school at one point seemed like my brothers. Obviously not anymore because they have gone away to college, but when we were closest, we were just like brothers.
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