Today is my only living grandparent’s 85th birthday. (Shout out to my Grandma!!!) And it got me thinking, “What would a month of love be without mentioning family?”…unless, of course, I didn’t actually love them. But I do. I have an awesome family. Now, anyone who knows me knows that we have issues. We are no where near perfect–we couldn’t even give off the illusion if we wanted to. Just between my siblings and me we have a lot of personality differences, and then you throw in the spouses and things can get a little bit crazy. We get in fights. We disagree. We hurt feelings and get our feelings hurt. Don’t we sound so fun?!

Here’s the thing, though. We love unconditionally. Sure, we don’t always love being around each other. If you know me and how opinionated I am, just multiply that times eight and you know what it’s like at my family gatherings. The beauty of that is, we all know we’re going to speak our minds (we do try and at least be nice about how we share our opinions…for the most part). However, that’s not what makes my family so great…or at least not all of it.

What makes my so happy to be part of my family is that I know that every member is going to be there when I need them. Whether it’s a phone call, a question about drug interactions, advice on which job to take, help moving, or simply a listening ear. We are all very, very busy people, but we make the effort to show that we love each other.

As a kid, I can remember wishing that I was part of a different family (my childhood was less than ideal), but somewhere along the way, or perhaps because of all of the stuff we had to deal with, my family became not just people I was stuck with, but people I would choose to be with, even if I didn’t have to be with them. (And even if that wasn’t the case, I’m sure I’d figure out a way to manage because I’d never give up my darling nieces and nephews. Ha ha ha.)

Feb. 13 – I love my family!