Routes about Roots-Beer beats pudding

http://www.unc.edu/~tammyj/Viscosity.htm

Blood is thicker than water. I mean really, in scientific terms, blood is in fact thicker than water.

As far as the saying goes, well, sayings are about quips and concise wit. This one in particular, is exactly that for me—just a saying.

In typing the last two entries (Cycling and Negative Instructions, one specific word continued to stand my hairs on end as I typed it—biological. I use the qualifier at length because that’s how I feel about said connection (read: “not a relationship”). Biological…father, mother, brother, sister, sibling, what have you.

Internationally speaking, family is something that has been cherished for centuries. Wars have been waged and vendettas have been vowed. Tribes, villages, colonies, empires, the list goes on, and because of this innate cultural gravity, I feel like what I’m about to say in this blog is as blasphemous as any God-fearing soul can imagine.

I respect my elders. I acknowledge the past, and I learn as much as I can moving forward. I know it’s a privilege to drink clean water and have a warm bed under a roof. I get that any self-respecting parent would want the best for their child.

But what I refuse to hand over is an entitlement of blind respect, unquestioning submission, and an attitude to bend over and bow down to selfish cowards.

I do not have to respect someone that blames, blackmails, lies, and alienates. I do not have to love someone who manipulates trust and uses immature tactics. And I definitely do not have to deal with someone who does not listen.

It’s a rough moment when you realize that someone you thought was strong, rational, mature, and above all else, a friend, turns out to be a conniving coward who can’t answer simple, straight-forward questions or communicate without feeding a chemical dependency first.

I don’t feel bad them, nor do I pity them. I don’t waste my time trying to reach out or do anything else for them. I focus on my safety and health and realize that I now know the true meaning of disappointment.

I feel bad for my friend who has never met his father, for my friend who doesn’t know she’s adopted, for my friend who’s afraid to get married because they don’t know how a marriage is supposed to work. I feel bad that I can harbor these types of feelings for a figure that someone I care about only wants to have in their life.

But that’s just it. These biologicals? They’re figures. These genetic roommates? They just happen to have the same set of sperm and egg donors as you do. That doesn’t make you an emotional family. It makes you a statistic, and it gives you a template that you can decide to follow or not.

You can’t choose your family, but you can choose your friends…

So choose your family to be your friends,

or choose your friends to become your family.

The latter is the choice I’ve made, and it’s a decision that’s often difficult to defend because so many people choose the former and feel it’s the only way.

NOTHING IS EVER THE ONLY WAY.

My biological older brother got married a few years ago, and because I acknowledged we were never that close, I did not assume (nor ask to be) in his wedding. My mother already assumed I would be, and I came to find out he thought the same. If he wanted to, sure, but I just wanted him to ask me like any grown man would ask anyone he would want in his wedding. By the way it was handled, you’d think George McFly was asking Biff to borrow his truck.

When I got engaged a couple years later, my mother assumed both my biological siblings (there is a younger sister as well) would be in the wedding, and she was disappointed to hear that I requested neither of them.

However, I did have my brothers and sisters in the wedding, and those that weren’t standing up there with me were probably in the seats and hung around for the whole reception.

Yeah, my side of the wedding party looked more mixed up than Peter Klaven’s in I Love You, Man, but dammit, my family was in my wedding.

My kids will have cool uncles, aunts, and cousins, and that’s because all the parents will get along too. Not because we’re supposed to because of some invisible-to-the-naked-eye double-helix structure, but because we want to.

Blood may be thicker than water, but water’s in beer and what does blood make, pudding? I’ll take beer over pudding most days.

Routes about Roots-Cycling

Last week I found out via Facebook post that one of my uncles had passed. The last time I saw him was…over 20 years ago, but I still felt it. I wanted to reach out to my two cousins who just lost their father, but at the same time I felt grossly awkward for wanting to feel so close after being so far for so many years.

A couple months ago, I received an email invitation to a wedding for a cousin I have never actually met. I’ve met her sister (for the first time just two years ago), but not her. I appreciated the gesture of inviting my wife and I, and I felt guilty for not inviting them to my wedding just this past January.

When I was seven, I think, I went to New York with my parents and older brother and we stayed at my (mother’s side) uncle’s place. Aside from him being “really tall” (because who isn’t when you’re a seven year old Filipino?) I don’t remember much else. Not if he had a wife, children, or anything.

1. As a child, I only saw my cousins, aunts, and uncles of our parents coordinated it.

2. My parents’ relationships with their siblings affected my relationships with my cousins, aunts, and uncles.

3. Now that I’m older I’m able to contact my cousins, aunts, and uncles on my own.

4. It’s awkward, but (compared to before) it’s better than nothing. (Or is it?)

5. I have a one year-old biological nephew, which means I have the opportunity to be a cool uncle.

6. My (non-existent) relationship with my biological brother affects my (non-existent) relationship with my nephew.

7. As my wife and I have kids, my decision to not communicate with my biological siblings affects their knowledge/relationship with their biological uncle/aunt/cousins.

8. They will have chosen uncles/aunts/cousins with my chosen family.

9. As our children get older, they may want to reach out to their cousins, aunts, and uncles.

10. It may be awkward.

History does repeat itself, and although the reasons may be different, the result is the same. This feeling does not sit well with me.

My goal as a husband (and eventually, as a father) is for the health, safety, well-being of my family. Right now this is centralized on my wife and myself. My decision to maintain a safe distance from my biological siblings and parents has been made clear. As kids come into the picture, there are new relationships that must be acknowledged: uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandparents.

There may be some blood-related folks out there that I do not wish to have involved in my child’s life.

I don’t make a lot of wishes, but I wish it could be less complicated.

Rest in Peace, Uncle Art.  Arthur Edward Ponce 6/25/54-10/1/13

--Art will never die, and without it there is no heart or earth.

Routes about Roots-Negative Instructions

In an open confession with my Youth Pastor before my Confirmation, I shared with him that a lot of my troubles had to deal with my parents. He then said to me something that we all know, but am definitely glad he said—when kids are born they don’t come with instructions.

We all know that this is true, but to some extent, growing up with whomever we’re raised by, we just kind of slide into the understanding that they’re supposed to know what to do, and we maybe think they’re a little bit invincible in the fact that they’re supposed to protect us.

In the last year, I learned just how human my biological parents are, and as I’m newly-married and thinking about raising a family in the (relatively) near future, raising kids without instructions is something I think about quite often.

I was raised in nuclear family: father worked, stay-at-home mother, older brother, younger sister. Throughout grade school it was rare (for me) to know someone that didn’t live with both of their parents, and I definitely didn’t know any openly gay couples, or people for that matter. From an early age I wanted to get married and have a family of my own, and it just felt natural that I would feel that way.

After high school, while in the Navy, and even more so after I got out, moved back to California and started in community college, I met so many people who were felt strongly about “never” getting married or having children. Many of these opinions were followed up with a statement of how they didn’t have a good example growing up of a good marriage or healthy childhoods, so they didn’t feel comfortable going into a marriage or raising kids, let alone even entertaining the thought.

Who did have an excellent/perfect/normal childhood or have indestructible/flawless parents, though?

Exactly.

And even though I realized this at a fairly young age, the more I thought about my life growing up, the more I realized I had a clear blueprint of how not to raise children. Bad times and scary stories stick with us more vividly than good times, right? Well, after so many you start to think that you just don’t want to deal with it, but I flipped it and realized I had the perfect template of what not to do.

Now that I’m married, I’ve started reflecting on aspects of marriage, and I’ve found it to be just as helpful, I know that there are certain things I don’t want to do in a marriage.

About a week ago, I wrote this blog (click me!) and talked about how I caught myself early emulating a life that I observed growing up. How did I refocus myself for I really wanted? By recognizing what I did not want.

My wife and I do want to have kids, and I know there won’t be instructions on the placenta, but I have, in effect, written my own instructions by living my life and listening to my past. How that turns out, I’ll have to let you know in a few years.

Until then, I need to figure out how I’m going to branch off this family tree stuff into the local weather—leaves of different trees strewn about the yard.