Continuing the holiday warm-and-fuzzies blitzkrieg began yesterday…

I’m thankful for the family I have left. Mother, father, stepfather, sisters and one cousin-slash-sister, hereby dubbed custard. Uncle, aunt, cousin. Roughly one half of what formerly was the “family.”

There are things that I know I can count on from these people. I can call my mom, spur of the moment, and ask her to cook some sort of meal if I have the taste for it. Meatloaf, for example. I can expect my uncle to make silly and often nasty jokes and to be exceedingly entertained by them. I can expect Sandra to show up late. I can expect Buddy to be MIA 75% of the time at any given mom-hosted family function. I can expect dad to chastise me for driving “crazy,” and to help me with my car when I need it. I can expect Teri to ruin birthdays where ever she roams (just kidding). I can expect Crystal to give me underwear at every gift-giving holiday, and to instinctually respond with a very sarcastic “Oh” whenever anyone speaks to her. I can expect Molly to say unexpected, silly things, which crack herself up more than the rest of us.

What can I expect to never happen? I’m pretty sure I won’t be summarily disowned any time soon. Mom will never say “Have fun not having parents anymore.”

I know that when I get bitten by mysterious insects, I can call mom and avoid going to the bothersome doctor. When my car catches on fire, I can get dad to look at it instead of going to the bothersome mechanic. When I’m hungry, I can go to mom’s and mooch instead of going to bothersome… Wendy’s.

It’s something I’ve thought long and hard on. My life is nothing if not tenuous. If any one of a number of threads snapped, I would scarcely be able to cope. I frequently reassess my “outs” if such a thing were to ever happen. I know that, if the worst was to befall me, and my house of cards came tumbling to earth, I could count on any of those people to help. There was a time when I would have ascribed that got-my-back status to the family as a whole, but having seen how quickly that devotion can turn to disgust, and knowing them as I do, they might rescind that love if they knew I was an agnostic.

This does not, however, imply that I will stop being mean to Crystal. That is one family tradition that will never be torn asunder.