Familyships

Familyship is a term I have newly coined (literally just made it up). Consider it imaginarily self-copyrighted by moi, because it’s so on point.


Basically, familyships are the connections with the family you have chosen for yourself, in other words your real-and-true, die-hard, take-a-bullet-for-you friends. Differing from a relationship or friendship, a familyship is that heightened level of connection, with the “lifers” if you will, the ones who you know are going to be there through the clichéd thick and thin. I have always said that friends are the family that you choose for yourself (though I’m somewhat embarrassed to say this was a line from General Hospital’s Jason Morgan). But regardless of where the concept came from, ‘tis in fact truer than true. Your family is your family. You’re born into it. But your friends… your friends are of your own fateful choosing. You don’t have to be aligned with someone, you don’t have to relate to someone whom you are not related to. It’s a choice. You choose to surround yourself with individuals whose presence enriches your life for the better, with people who understand you and love you for all that you are (and all that you are not). Familyships might as well be family, because they are just as unconditional.


Now not all friends can be categorized as familyships or worthy of the premise, that’s exactly the point. Like I said, it’s a heightened level of connection, a special status, an elusive club. You have your here and there friendships, a random assortment of people that you associate with and whose company you enjoy, acquaintances at best. Some have come and gone and maybe come and gone again. They are people to fill the gaps. Social fillers and fluff. In the grand scheme of meaning, in the screenplay of your life, utterly forgettable and without mention.

And THAN you have your familyships, the people that are so ingrained in the fabric of your existence that they are as much a part of you as anything or anyone. Familyships are fillers too, but fillers of your heart and of your little bubble of happiness in this great big world. They are not fillers of the nothings, but the fillers of your everything. Everything that matters. These friends don’t depend on quantity or on the give and take, there are no demands or fine print, no clauses or requirements, it’s the quality of your bond and being able to pick up where you left off, time and time again, that stand the test of time. These are the friends that are your family, the family that you choose for yourself. The unconditional few.

I’m a lucky lady and can say that I am blessed to have many familyships, some from when I was a wee little lass, some formed in early adulthood evolved through other familyships, some that have stood against time and circumstance, and some new and wonderful ones through my husband’s familyships. There really are a lot of amazing people I know. Sometimes things happen, life happens, and you start to realize who is really present in your life, not literally, not just in regularly scheduled physical proximity, but those who really genuinely care under the surface superficiality… who’s love, well wishes, and good intentions are felt with a deep-rooted and long-lasted certainty, sincerely existing and detectable, appearing when truly needed without question or qualm.

Familyships are constant. Yes there is ebb and flow, as with any human contact and especially where emotions and feelings are involved. But with familyships there is the mutual understanding of that constant presence in each other’s lives, that reliable quality of bond.

And as the famous “We are Family” song states:
“All of the people around us they say
Can they be that close?
Just let me state for the record
We’re giving love in a family dose."