Forging a family

(A-Z Challenge: F)

Nothing about my family can be explained in a simple sentence. The poor saps who try to make small talk by asking me about my family find themselves in a conversation they didn’t mean to have. Well, welcome to 2014. Family isn’t so straightforward anymore. Here’s a snapshot of our crew, in around-the-coffee-machine question & answer format:

Are you two married?  My sweetie and I exchanged rings in a non-legal ceremony under a mind-blowing starry sky in the New Mexico desert two summers ago. As we define marriage—a partnership—yes we are, although as a lot of people define marriage—a complete merging of finances, automatic beneficiary rights and a notarized certificate in a courthouse vault somewhere—we are not. We usually refer to each other as partner because we feel like we're partners in all this (duh), although occasionally we'll refer to each other as husband or wife. 

Do you live together? (This is the follow-up question, when people are still trying to figure out if we’re married or what.) We live in two units of a triplex. My partner & his son occupy one of the upstairs units and my son, daughter and I are downstairs. We run it mostly as one household — same rules, shared groceries, shared meals, shared rides to and from school. It’s like a two-story house except that you have to go outside to go up and down the stairs, and there are two separate kitchens to stock and clean. We each pay our own bills. 

How many kids do you have? 

Oh, three or four. I have three, two of whom I'm raising, and then in addition, my partner's son. 

I find that the more questions someone asks, the more confused they become. And that’s quite all right. Our family came together like laying down pieces of a puzzle. First we defined the corners, then formed the edges, and then piece by piece, move by move, we’ve built inward toward the center. 

And although we didn’t go through the traditional steps to come together—first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Rachel with a baby carriage, yadda yadda—each step has been deliberate, thoughtful, daring and joyful. Each step has come with its own adjustment, for every one of us. Each step has deepened the connection, raised new questions and answered others.

Every time I find myself trying to answer questions about my family, I realize that I don't fully understand the bonds that hold us together. It's just five people growing together as we are each growing ourselves. It's just love, filling the spaces between us and circling around us all.