Family

I just spent a whirlwind three days on the East coast visiting my blood family.

As many of you know, I live in this tiny swath of the Midwest that is also called the Des Moines Metro area of Iowa. I don’t have ANY blood family here. The reason I live here is because many chapters of my story ago, I met a certain other half. After we tied that knot, I came here to live because I wanted to find a new adventure.

I love my little corner of the world. I love the village I have created with many friends, from the crazy navigational genius who arrived at our abode at 0400 to take us to the airport for an early morning flight to the animal lover who came over and spent about an hour at our place each day we were gone to make sure the feline overlords were taken care of. There are the friends who volunteered to pick up stuff for us that was delivered while we’d be out of town and the friends who just checked on me via text every day to make sure I was doing all right.

I may not have blood family here in this swath of the Midwest, but I have a family very much like the one I write about in my Portals Series…. the one created by Solilune of Delphian, the Portal Seeker, when he is cast out of his own family for having magic reminiscent of the Necromancer. And like Soli can count on the Ruffians of the nameless village and the magical friends who make up his family, I know I can count of my family of kith. I trust the village that surrounds the other half and I in times of trouble and accepts that this zany, crazy, adventure-loving person isn’t gonna fit into some mold of “who she used to be” just to make others feel comfortable.

Don’t get me wrong…. I love my blood family. I love the connections I have with them. But more often than not, most of them are kind of strangers to me, tied by blood and little else in common. Even today, that family of choice often knows me better than my “real” family does. I have a family who doesn’t blink when I pull out the Squisheys to snap a photograph and accepts me for who I have become, not what I once was. I’m not told to “act normal” or “grow up” or “stop being silly” because to them, this is who I am and have always been.

That’s also not to say that I don’t belong to my blood family. Like Soli, who reforges relationships with those who tie to him by blood as he journeys along in his stories, I too keep in touch with the family on both sides of the coast as best as I can. I try to make connections as I can. But some relationships I have let fall by the wayside, as circumstances and the past are too much to allow me to forget the injustices I have been dealt, even though I have forgiven some of them. Others stay lukewarm at best, with funerals the only time we see each other despite my best intentions.

But my village…. they are always there. It’s one of the reasons I continue to live here in this little swath of the Midwest even though I have no blood family. Because my family is made up of both kin and kith, by bonds of blood but also ties of friendship, of those who accept me for who I am and those who wish I were different.

I know I belong.

Stay magical, friends.

Write your own story.

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