Most people cannot agree on many things in life; however one common thing is that family is the most important thing in a person’s life. It has always been my wonder however as to which family does that statement refer to? I believe everyone has two families that are a huge part of their lives. The first is of course your mother, father, sisters and brother, all the people you are tied to by blood. Is this the family that is supposed to be most important? No, I don’t think so; I believe that the family mentioned is one that comes later in a person’s life. This later family is the one that you choose: your friends. I don’t mean the girl that sat next to you in homeroom or the guy you ate lunch with. I mean the group of people in your life who mean the world to you. The people who you can go to for anything, they know all your secrets All your fears. And they love you and support you anyway. They’ve seen you at your best and your worst and they have supported you in both.
Don’t mistake what I’m saying; I love my parents and my sister. However as I have grown older and moved away to college I’ve come to realize that it is a different kind of relationship. Parents will always be there for you, and you will always love them. It’s like a rule you can’t break, you love them and they love you. But you don’t always understand them, or see eye to eye. Some even wonder if they were switched at birth because they are so different from their families. When it comes to your friends though, you choose them. You slowly build relationships that sometimes hit a plateau of sorts and never go any further. But other times, your relationship with them blossoms and you slowly become closer and closer with them. They’re going to be there for all the good and bad times for ever celebration every loss, every happy and sad moment of your life. I’ve personally been through a lot in my first semester here at Bridgewater and always it was my friends who I trusted enough to go to for help or comfort. I believe it’s a natural course to pull away from parents and move closer to other people in your life.
As we enter the later years of our childhood, we move away from our parents and everything we have ever known. Whether it’s going to college or just moving out and joining the work force we are put in new situations every day. This is when you learn who your true family is. When you have nowhere to run you know you can go to them. We make our own paths and on those paths we learn who our true family is. We find the people that we were meant to be with all along.