Day 13: Family bonding

Agape - a word that my friend Shen introduced me to when we were talking about tattoos and how she wanted that to be engraved on her hand. Apparently it has a biblical origin and means unconditional love. Short and simple. I liked it or rather I agaped it. I think that word perfectly describes how my four family members feel about each other.

People often wonder how I can be so close to my family...most people I know, the older the get, the more distant they get from their family. Their friends, partners etc take priority. For someone who has always moved around a lot and never had a life-long friend, my family are my best friends. I may move away and go do my own thing but I still feel really connected to the three most important people in my life. My flatmates in Prague were surprised at how I would Skype with them almost every day, how do you have so much to say? That's the thing about great relationships...you don't always have to have something to say, sometimes silence or talking about nothing in particular suffices too.

With varying and clashing work, school, social commitment schedules, we make it a point to have at least one meal together per week, at the table, not in front of the TV, not while Skyping with some other relative or friends. This meal is usually the Sunday morning breakfast that usually goes on for way too long and leads in some sort of major debate or disagreement! All four of us are very opinionated and feel it is our moral duty to make our opinions heard, expressed and fought for, even if it is to just wind the other person up sometimes! With the elections coming up soon, and with the parents and us divided over our political beliefs, we are always in for a debate worse than the one between Key and Goff. A simple bonding activity ends in disharmony!

So this Sunday,we decided to have the first family barbie of the summer! It's nearly December and it was time to get the grill on! Dad as usual was busy right from the morning with the shopping, marinading, grilling etc... leaving us in charge of more difficult things like tasting, eating, drinking, playing music. Tough job! But someone's got to do it! Over the course of 4 hours,we went through various rounds of grilled meat and veggies, several glasses of chardonnay, lots of memories and a long playlist of all our favourite songs! If happiness was to be captured in a moment, it would be then! Sunset: 4 happy people, barely moving from all the eating, giggling and singing (or attempting to sing) "Love of the common people"...C'est la joie de vivre! We kept politics out of the picture. We kept all serious talk out of the picture. Computers were far away and TV was switched off. We went down memory lane and discussed our vision for the future. It really was awesome. Family bonding, as it should be :).

Good food, good music, good company, seriously what more do you need?! If and when I ever start a family, this is exactly what I'd want!