belonging.

It would be an understatement to say how much the past few weeks have been. But I am grateful for the time to spend with family. I moved out from my family home at 16, and ever since then, family has become something that I have learnt not to take for granted. It is always bittersweet leaving them behind, but perhaps, I’ve gotten so used to not having them around that its become just another goodbye.

For the first time in five years, all of us were in the same place at the same time. It is surreal knowing that in the years to come, moments like this will grow fewer and far between. I know I will always cherish the moments where I can have a conversation with my parents still, across from a table, instead of 9,000 miles away. I am grateful for the stories they tell, and for the ability to listen to them still. The moments take me back to the years I used to take it for granted, and maybe it’s why I’ve grown to appreciate how my relationship with family has become a little less complicated with age.

Distance does wonders to relationships, and to be able to grow and continue relationships across oceans and continents is no small thing. A friend of mine recently upended her life to Australia, and we laughed about how weird it is now that our friendship has changed, just by the time we receive each other’s messages and how we engage with one another now within our mundane. It will be different, but it will continue to be fun.

Perhaps that is what the years have taught me, that if we play life right, we won’t find ourselves missing family or yearning for what we have left behind, if we continue to keep what we have left with us, and recreate manifestations of that in our communities. Authentic relationships build family, and family is not just a physical expression of community or home, but a temporal one. We all have the capacity to find our “family” in the stiches we weave of our collective life tapestries. Family will always be found in the places you create, and perhaps its within each one of us, to find the courage once more, the joy that comes in belonging to one.