What really matters... family

Lately I have really been thinking about how truly important my family is to me. With such a wonderful family who supports me and loves me and laughs with me and at me, how can I ever feel lonely or unsatisfied? My parents are two of my best friends and even though my brother is mean to me a lot of the time, I know that he would do anything for me. My grandparents support me to no end and love to here about everything I am doing. My aunts and uncles over the years have become my friends too. And even though all of my cousins are younger than me, ranging from 16 down to 7, all so close to me that all of them are like siblings.

I think that is why sometimes I really wish that I had not gone so far away from them when I came to college. I never wanted to be thought of as a home body and just wanted to get away from the small town that I grew up in, but I never thought about how I would feel being that far away from the people who have always been there for me and who I love so much. There are very few times at school when I have really been upset because of being homesick like when I came back for sorority recruitment during winter break freshman year. However, I think that maybe it has been an ongoing feeling of discontent that I have really never been able to place a specific reason on before. After I graduated from high school I moved 4 hours away from my home to live with my aunt and uncle outside Philadelphia where most of my dad's side of the family lives. I thought that this would be a good way to adjust being away from my mom and I really wanted to get out of town. I loved it and thought that I would be fine coming to college after that because I would have had a nice adjustment period, however, maybe to me home is where the family is. It does not matter which part of my family that is, but I really do love to be around them. I think it is extremely unique how close my family is including our extended family.

Family is something that really matters to me. I need to remember in college how important those relationships are to me and make sure to keep those ties strong so that I do not feel like something is missing in my life. I need to make sure that I do not just call my mom to talk to her everyday, but also need to make sure that I talk to my aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents on a regular basis too. That is something so far that I have not been very good at. I think that it is important for my cousins to have me in their lives because at their ages they probably would love to be able to talk to their older cousin about things that they are troubled with. I need to be there to talk to them about things that they are not comfortable talking to their friends or parents about. This needs to become a priority of mine before time passes by before me and I was never there to be there for my family.

I have always felt the love and comfort that my family gives me and I want them to feel the love I have for all of them too. I cannot let the tight ball of yarn holding our family together become loose.

"And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity."
Colossians 3:14 New International Version