Ramirez - Muraco... Table for 25+ people please.

It’s been a couple of months, so per usual welcome back!

I started writing this after a couple of drinks but I do have to be honest and say it was finished sober.. it took a couple days to finish it as well as finally post it. This one isn’t heavy, its also not the lightest and brightest writing either. It is my truth, it is my growth.

“A group of one or more parents and their children living together as a unit” .. if you google the word “family” that’s the definition that comes up first.. and you read it and in the world we live in now, it’s seldom that you can find those words in action.. typically there is a break in family.. whether it’s a parental absence or that there are one or more children that don’t “belong” to the parent(s).. don’t start the over thinking about that last sentence.. take it as face value for how I’ve written it.. (let’s get back on track) now-a-days, more often than not we consider the friends we have had that have stuck through our struggles to be family.. it even gets to a point where (& remember I’m speaking personally from my point of view and how I feel/have seen either myself or those around me give the word their own definition) the people we have known the least amount of time get that tittle. Personally, family has always been a priority.. growing up we always had the “Sunday schedule” of church then lunch with the family & then everyone went their separate ways to continue the schedule of their personal lives till the following Sunday.

Growing up so closely to my cousins the way that I did, they were my first true best friends .. it was habitual to see them and spend time with them.. we went through a lot together, we were each other’s shoulder to cry on and the ones we laughed hardest with.

Labor Day weekend Jules and I went out of state to celebrate a friend and her family.. now, before arriving I knew we were going to be surrounded by mainly strangers ( I’m very close to the friend we flew out of our comfort zone for .. LITERALLY ) but her family very quickly began to feel like family to me… it was the closeness, the lack of boundaries & the abundance of laughter and jokes & love that gave me the same feeling that I used to get I was little on Sunday’s and I knew I got to spend the day with my family.

I didn’t want to come back home, not only because it meant I wasn’t going to be waking up in the morning to the familiarity that the friendship I have with her and her daughters has physical distance again but also because I was going to miss feeling like a kid again, knowing I was going to be surrounded by so many incredible people that brought nothing but happiness and laughter even through any of the things that maybe didn’t happen “perfectly”.

All of this got me really thinking about my family, about the way that life has taken all of us in so many different paths in different places across the world. We each have our own families and friends that have become family & I understand as adults this is how it goes.

In the coming weeks my family will be together like we were when I was little .. now, I’m not sure if everyone will be able to make it but I find myself hoping and praying more then ever before that we can all get together again.

Family is HARD; relationships are HARD and after one of the best weekends I’ve had there’s a new fire to fight for the hard family relationships.

In one way or another each one of us has hurt or been hurt by someone we call family. Sometimes, there is a necessity for space and distance and that’s okay too but that’s not what this is about.

There are a lot of things I wish I could have done differently so I hadn’t hurt those I did the way I did, however I did… but I can’t change things I no longer have control over… I can only choose to move forward with a new mindset as we have the chance again to be together with a slight resemblance of what these relationships used to be like with new hopes and new potential.

Whoever you call family.. I hope you can work through the rough times because the best times always outweigh them.

& for those relationships that do require space and distance, for the sake of both parties may there be peace and forgiveness even in distance.

Remember to be kind to yourself.

Love Always,

The Tipsy Mami.