What Family Means

I keep chasing my family around the world, and still the branches of my tree stretch further apart. Someone I love very much is flying away from American soil tonight. Nothing impressive, no ellusively tantalizing agenda. To be stationed in Germany, where trying to find his home will continue. With all my heart, I wish him adventures without peril and knowledge without the initial trial of pain.

Tonight, a woman I want to care for has scared me once again to my core. I've been having nightmares for weeks. In some, I am alone in an empty room, as I watch the people I love walk away from me because I've failed so spectacularly to achieve the expectations set even lowest on the scale for me.

In other nightmares, I dream of being returned to the single-most terrifying places I have ever been: an orphanage. To be surrounded, and know you are among the children who feel no one wants them. Some had been cherished deeply, but became lost in the world after some tragedy. Others, like me, had been given up by parents who simply did not want them. So many stories that don't fall neatly into categories; so many faces begging to be held, to be loved and protected from the storm of life.

The world has become a dangerous place to find one's self. I've been fighting to become a better person, a leader, to make a place for myself amongst likeminded others. I want to debate causes and topics. I want to make this world a better place, no matter how cliche or insincere it may sound. Look at me as you tell me about your life; you will never see less than true, attentive concern and care from me.

But even as I fight to find my place, it seems no one wants me. The strides I make are an ant's in the shadow of elephants. I know I'll find hope, encouragement, even the strength to be optimistic tomorrow. That doesn't stop my heart from screaming with terror that I've finally become Sarah from The Little Princess and this time there is no kindly Indian servant next door. No Father will be rescued by a grieving elderly man, vainly hoping his own heir survived German attack, come to rescue me from how far I've had to fall.

Even as the storm rages in me, warring with myself, my family surrounds me with amazing beauty, and reasons to believe that life will forever have gardens far richer than any sunset I've seen, any painting could capture, any words could approximate. My family gives me love, and life. My family gives me hope.