It's Not All Rainbows and Cupcakes

Last week I wrote a post about how lucky (and said lucky in it about a bagillion times) my Handsome Husband and I are to have such a strong support system.

I wanna get really real (really really real) here for a minute.

It's not all rainbows and cupcakes up in here.

By that, I mean, 

we are not perfect, we don't have it perfect, our families are not perfect, our support system is not flawless.

We fight sometimes - with each other, with our parents, our grandparents, our siblings, our aunts and uncles, cousins, cats, beta fish, you name it.  And those people fight with each other sometimes.

We slam doors.

We make each other cry.

We say mean things that almost burn our tongues they are so nasty.

We go hours, days, weeks, even months sometimes without talking to someone we love.

We have moments where we wish bad things on each other.

We exclude people.

We try and make people pick sides.

We are not perfect.

But that's okay.

Because we're family.

At the end of the day, we love each other.

We will always be there for one another in need.

We forgive each other for our wrongs, and for our shortcomings.

We find it in our hearts to forgive and forget when all we want to do is cut out the problem (whether it be a person, or a situation, or whatever) out of our lives so it cannot hurt us again.

We muster up an apology, whether it be immediate or years down the line, even if it hurts our pride, our ego, or our self-esteem.  We apologize without negotiation, even if it brings us no return, we do it to express our great regret in hurting someone we love.

We love each other so much, that when someone is fighting with someone else, it physically hurts us.  We fret, stress, and pray over it hoping that whomever is unhappy can find peace, and that we can be together again like before.

We feel each other's pain - we ache for each other's heartbreaks.

We live our lives for one another, not just near one another.

Because we're family.

So when I find myself stewing because one of my sisters isn't talking to me, or listening as someone in the family tells me how mad they are at someone else in the family, or getting annoying with HH, or even stressing over the drama that can be female friendship, I want to remind myself that we will always have a light at the end of the tunnel.

Because we're family.

Because at the end of the day, whether related by blood, marriage, or friendship, there is something inside you that makes you a unit.  Something that no matter how bad it gets, no matter how horribly someone wrongs you, or  how many times you throw your hands in the air claiming again that this time is the last straw - something pulls you back together, almost tugging at your heart strings to fill the void that the hurt of fighting with family can bring.  We are each simply pieces to a puzzle, only parts of the greater whole.  And we might rub each other raw, and barely squeeze in there, but a puzzle is not complete without it's most complicated piece, it's most difficult piece - a puzzle is not complete without every single last piece, or it's just a bunch of puzzle pieces pretending to be a puzzle.