Musings while composing a wedding guest list

I find myself musing on family these days. Not just the family you were born with, although Lord knows that they can push your buttons. But the process of becoming someone's family, either by going through a tough situation together, by marriage or by long years of complacent friendship. In all three cases, which I've experienced (or am about to) it's a messy process. Now me, I'm accustomed to messy. In my mind, messy is sometimes good, cause you get negative vibes out of the way. But some people avoid messy. Take Chef Boyardee, for instance; he HATES messy. In fact, he hates anything remotely out of place, never mind messy. Move his pen from point A to point B and he'll probably move it back. But I digress.

Family relationships are messy. Things never fit neatly into place. Your children (real or adopted) will not do everything you think they should do, even if you have the same values. Should you try to force/guilt/harangue them into doing what you think they should do? No, but its a good bet that you're gonna do it anyway. When I was younger I used to complain about that all the time, but now it's like, what are you gonna do? That's how Mom/Dad/Uncle/Granny is. Let's just deal.

I grew up without a lot of involved extended family around, something my mother has apologised for several times. I didn't care really; didn't have it, couldn't miss it. So the scenes that unfolded when I planned to go to Guyana alone weirded me out NO END. First of all, my mother felt the need to inform ALL her relatives (living in the WI and abroad) about my plans, including the fact that I wanted to write a story about the experience. So everybody went and got personally invested in the quality of this story that wasn't even written yet or sure to be published; from my darling uncle who arranged travel buddies for me and cautioned me about the crime situation to an opinionated but lovable great-aunt who privately arranged someone to take me and my mom along the Essequibo coast, then asked our approval afterward.

At the time, it seemed intrusive, messy. I quarreled with Mommy under my breath several times, asking her WHY she had to tell everybody everything I was doing. She looked at me bewildered and said, "Why not? They're family." And after the trip was over, I realised that I wouldn't have been able to do it without them. I thought that I could waltz into Guyana and handle myself, but several experiences showed me that I was *eh hem* less than prepared. And that at the end of the day, I didn't really want to be alone. Thank God for intrusive, messy family.