Not to Brag About My Totally Awesome Family...

Ok, I actually am going to brag about my totally awesome family.  And my totally awesome little sister, who thinks our family is totally awesome too.  

Man, I just really really love these people.

One of the best parts about having such a great family?  The fact that all of us think it is so great.  Even as I typed that it sounded sorta, I don't know, corny, or strange, but it's true... we all love each other so much and we are all loved so much right back, and it is the best feeling ever.  

Yeah, I have plenty of insecurities... most of the time, I really like to just do my own thing and feel all independent, I don't care too much about what other people think, I feel like it is a dumb waste of time and energy to worry about whether or not people like me.  I try not to be someone I'm not and I try to trust that I can be authentic and that people will still like me, and like me for who I really am... I try to believe that if what they see is what they get, it will work out for the best.  But really deep down, if I let myself admit it, I am just longing for love and acceptance, for deep and meaningful relationships, which, I think, is probably just what everyone else in the world is longing for, too. 

{Disclaimer: I am writing this post sort of late at night, which is always when I feel most sentimental, and most vulnerable.  It is always -- and only -- late at night when these insecurities crawl out from the little cracks I have stuffed them into and display themselves.  There are generally not too many people around when this happens, and I usually cry a little.  Sometimes a lot.}

I am always wishing that I were a better sister, a better daughter, a better friend, a better person in general... someday, I'm sure, I will be wishing that I were a better doctor and a better wife and a better mom... and in some of my darkest moments, I really start to doubt whether I am capable of being any of those things, and then I start to doubt that I am deserving of the kind of love that I want, the kind of love I also want to be able to give.

I have these reoccurring nightmares where some or all of my family is really mad at me, or just doesn't like me, and they are nightmares in the truest sense of the word.  They are the kind of dreams that you just feel desperate in, like the ones where you have to run away from something chasing you, but your feet won't move no matter what you do, and then you wake up, and that desperate, panicked, devastated feeling is still with you, just as real as it seemed in the dream.

(Umm... maybe I should be telling all of this to a shrink, instead of the internet?)

Anyway, my personal neuroses aside, I think what I am trying to say here is that my family is the most important thing in the world to me, and not just in the you-love-your-mom-because-she-is-your-mom-and-you-have-to-love-her kind of way.  

I adore these people.  I really, really like them, as individuals.  The fact that they are my family makes me feel like I have won the life-lottery.  Nothing in the world means more to me than their love and support.  And the amazing thing is, I know that I have it, even when I don't especially feel it, when I am super sleep-deprived and stressed out and in an anxiety-produced fit of self-doubt.  Even when my fear overcomes my sane, rational mind, and even when it is hard to trust that this is true, I know that I am wildly blessed to have this family and their unconditional acceptance.

I think this is what true love actually is.