joy: week 10

in which family is everything

Ten weeks of this and I haven’t skipped a week yet. And I still look forward to thinking back on my week every Sunday morning and recognizing the joy in my life.

My week ended with a sprained ankle and maybe a pulled ligament when I fell coming into my house. Just completely lost my balance. I remember thinking on the way down that this was going to be bad, and that’s when I heard the pop at the same time I hit the ground. What an awful sound.

So please pardon that there is no list today, and that I just want to talk about this one specific thing that gave me widespread joy this week and always: my family.

I am so lucky to exist within a tight-knit extended family. I have cousins and aunts and uncles I adore, even if I don’t get to seem the too often. But it is my immediate family - mom, dad, two sisters, my brother in law, three nephews, and of course my own children - who are my entire heart. They love me unconditionally, even when I fuck up. They are there for me always, dropping whatever they are doing when I am in need. They nurture me and comfort me and make me feel valued. They make me laugh, and cry tears of joy. And I love being able to reciprocate, to be always there for them, to nurture and love them unconditionally.

We get along. We rarely argue. We have fun whenever we are all together. And this was to be an “all together” weekend in which the Rhode Island clan comes to town and we spend the weekend playing cards, eating, and generally just bullshitting with each other. We gather at my parents’ house - situated across the street from my house - and become this delightful crowd filled with laughter, kindness, and love.

So I was fortunate(?) enough to get injured on one of these weekends. We would be spending most of the weekend at mom’s so I packed up my laptop, chargers, book, and phone and made my way across the street with the help of my baby sister Lisa (we were celebrating her birthday), and my nephew Robby, and my sister Jo-Anne who pulled up with a walker for me to use so I could be fairly mobile.

I posted up on my dad’s recliner at 10am. Someone brought me ice for my leg. Someone wrapped my foot up. Someone made me a buttered bagel and cup of coffee. Someone brought me an 800 Ibuprofen and I put baseball on the tv and drifted in and out of sleep knowing I was being taken care of.

I understand how lucky I am to have a family like this, a family that does for each other, that takes care of each other, a family where no one turns their back. I cherish it every day and the older we all get, the more I make the effort to not take any of it for granted.

I’ve had a year of being sick, being in and out of the hospital with various emergencies and surgeries. Never once did anyone in my family make me feel like a burden. I am able to lean on them without worrying about taking up their time, or overburdening their capacity for listening to me complain about my ailments. Their care is effortless, it’s given without a second thought.

My family brings me great joy, perhaps the greatest joy I can feel. Week after week, they are there for me, but this weekend really hammered home my overwhelming gratitude for what I have, and that is why there is only one joy this week. Because that particular joy - joy of family - is all encompassing. So thank you to my parents, my nephews, my sisters, my brother-in-law, and my kids for being everything to me.