So humans are complicated and hard to deal with yeah. But you see family, gosh! That’s a whole new level of complicated and hard to deal with. When it comes to family, everything is just blurry and no rule applies because of course “it’s family”

It is generally believed that family is this sacred thing that must be revered at all times. Family must always come first. And more often than not, when family is involved even the closest of friends fall by the wayside. Talmbout, “blood is thicker than water”. Anyhoo, we need both blood and water.

In his book, courage to be disliked. Based on Adlerian psychology, Ichiro argued that all problems are interpersonal relationship problems and it seemed stupid to me at the time because come on, what happened to money problems Acne problems? Clothe problems? And the gazillion other problems that exist on earth.

But I had a rethink. I followed his arguments and I saw that indeed all problems are interpersonal relationship problems. Trust me if you were the only one on earth that career and drip that seems so important to you now wouldn’t even matter. You’d be too busy sipping pure coconut juice and chilling with polar bears and pandas to care about web design, med school or a 50 thousand dollars hermes bag.

However, we’re here and we’re not just here. We’re here with the ones we came through (parents) and the ones we came with (siblings) and the ones we came for (others). Family relationships are largely grounded in sentiment. When it’s family, logic is quiet, emotions reign (most times). No matter how distant or detached family members are, even if it’s just as weak as cobwebs, emotional attachment is still present. It’s not obvious until push comes to shove and sentimental feelings begin to dance around.

Only family members have the audacity to keep your childhood silliness actively in mind and judge you by it for the rest of your life. They rate you lesser than anyone else (not in all cases, some people have cool families. *clicks tongue*)

But to be honest, all families have flaws because families are made of humans and humans are, well, you know what you are. Hence, It would help a lot to stop trying to figure and straighten everything out. Just love them anyway. Trying to build a perfect family is like trying to fill a basket with water. The basket was never meant to hold water and you’re incapable of changing the basket’s destiny. If you persist and finally find a way to mend the holes to make it hold water, it wouldn’t be a basket anymore and that’s just family. (What was that about changing the destiny of a basket? Leemao. I hope you get my point though.)

I look at my family and I shake my head because I’m a sweetheart fgs, how did I end up with people I want to sell off half the time. I’m sure the feeling is absolutely mutual and the way forward is to intentionally love one another anyway. It’s not easy but try. There’s no coincidence with God so if God says they’re your folks, love them accordingly. In some cases, you might have to love them from afar but anyhow it goes, make sure love reigns.

Shout out to my folks: Oga, M.A, Olamide, Bolaji, Tolani, Dayo and Modupe. I love you gaiz so mush. I won’t trade you for anything else in the world (except a huge amount of money. Lol. Just kidding. I’d trade you for pancakes and sausages lovingly).

Cheers to the fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, grandparents, uncles, aunties, cousins, nephews, nieces and in-laws *inserts whoever I missed*.