Families are Forever

     

   I am the youngest of six children in my family. If you ask my older siblings they will tell you that I am the most spoiled out of all of us. Being the youngest isn’t as easy as they make it out to be. I had to be the loudest to be heard. I tried to grow up way too fast so I could do all the things my brother and sisters were doing. I hated being told I was too young to do something.

   I was raised in a very strict religion that was pushed on me at a very young age. There were a lot of rules to live by. We had an example to set, so that the rest of the world would know we were different. It was really hard to grow up this way because I always felt I was not good enough, even when I made little normal mistakes any child would make.

    When I turned fourteen I decided I didn’t need my family. I was done being told how to live my life. I started to rebel and not go to church. My parents took it very hard. The long talks and punishments did not work, I was stubborn. I moved away at the age of sixteen to live with my sister in Oklahoma. I was determined to prove to my parents that I was old enough to make my own decisions.

   I lost contact with my family for a very long time after that move. My sister would always tell me that they had asked how I was doing. I didn’t care what they wanted. I had put such a large wedge between my feelings about family. Sometimes I was afraid I would never see them again. Yes, it was childish but I was not willing to admit that to myself at the time.

    Two years later I moved back to my home town. I was very excited to see my friends and be back home, yet I was dreading having to see my parents. We didn’t have anything in common anymore and it had been so long since we had last spoken. I didn’t know what to say. I had been home for a month before I decided to go visit them. I still remember the day I knocked on their door. It felt very weird to knock on the door of the house I grew up in. When my mom answered she started to cry. It was then that I realized I was not making a statement by not speaking to them. I had hurt her deeply.

    We talked for hours about what Oklahoma was like and where I was living. I missed talking to my mom. I let her know how I felt about her religion and that I wanted nothing to do with it, and that I still felt the same way. She admitted she was wrong for pushing me so much as a child to be perfect. We were expressing our feelings in a healthy way, without yelling at each other like we used to. That day I let my parents back into my life.

   Families can mean different things to different people. There are the families you are born into and then there are the families you create. Your friends can be just as important to you as family. They can be there for you during hard times, just as your family is. You can have arguments with your family and you can have arguments with your friends. The one thing that makes you a family is you forgive and move on. You lift each other up when someone is down and you are always there for one another. It took me a very long time to learn this.