BOOM

I had a friend who’s house growing up was booming! Booming in the sense that people were coming and going, people were shouting, phones were ringing. It was an exceptionally lively house full of boatloads of kids and constant action. It was a household that defined family to me. My friend liked to escape her booming household to the tranquil retreat of my house. It was quiet. The action was completely revolved around me. That lifestyle afforded me the opportunity to be brought up with an extremely intimate one on one relationship with a truly devouted parent. But booming it was not.

Today my house was booming. People were coming and going, people were shouting, phones were ringing…it was what I dreamed. I didn’t necessarily realize then that that was what I wanted. As I’ve grown up and made choices it has led me to that family. I have inadvertently created the family I admired. It’s not that anyone dreams up my background but it was completely magical in its own right.

Now that I’m living that life, I see the negatives in a way I didn’t exactly anticipate. I see that each of my children deserve a completely focused and devouted parent on just them. They should have the right for the sun to rise and set on them because they are so unbelievably special in a way that having to share their spotlight is so unfair. I also, however, see the benefit in a way that I couldn’t have identified from the outside looking in. I see the relationships that you get to make with these extra people – peers, helps set you up to relate with other people you cross paths with your whole life. Not to mention, completely shapes who you become as a person.

Either way, people all come out of a family life with pluses and minuses to their setup. Some end up striving for a family opposite than how they grew up or exactly the same. I am happy I was able to grow up in one family but make a family of a different shape and size. I am who I am because of my family. I frequently am stressed about that impact I have on these three, seeing as they will someday be who they are based on this family. And I’m sure somehow they will learn to resent the booming household in some ways but hopefully also love it in many ways.