Where do you belong?

Where do you belong? As children, we are suppose to be assured that we belong with our family. We are either spitting images of our mothers or fathers. Or some where in the family tree you can look at look at Aunts and Uncles and see someone who looks like you.

Before working out today, I was talking to one of the women and I said something about my mom being there as well and she said, "where is your mom?" So I pointed to my mom, this beautifully tall red head woman who doesn't look a thing like me. As I watched the woman's eyes grow wide and next came the comment I have heard since I was able to point out my mom. "That is your mom? I would have never guessed that one." Then my mom made a comment about how my fiance's family must be wondering where I come from. I'm not sure if they do or not but it is true, I don't look like my family.

In truth, this is something that I have always struggled with. As a really young child, I thought that I looked like my father's side of the family til one day when we were leaving church and the priest stops my Nana, who proudly introduced us as her grandchildren. He turned to my siblings and said "you both look just like your grandparents" and then just looked at me while my Nana quickly said "oh she looks like her mother's side of the family." To which, I looked up at her with a shocked expression because I don't look like my mother's family. My mother's family has red hair with height and thin frames. Suddenly, I was just like my brother and sister used to say. I was adopted. The weirdo who doesn't look like anyone. No chance of an identity through the family that I had thought I looked the most like. When I was really young, I took pride out of that fact. I looked like my daddy. No one else did. I was special. But at that moment all those years ago, I realized I wasn't special, just an outcast in a family of look a likes. The next day, my Nana approached me and said, "I could tell you were hurt that the priest didn't think you looked like us. But you really don't. Not that it is a bad thing." Which just made me want to cry, at 7 years old it is tough to feel like you are being pushed away from the grandparents you identified with. Not to mention that once again my sibling were the desired ones. Everyone claimed them as looking like their side of the family. After the week with my father's parents, we went to my mother's parents for a week with them. Where, of course, I asked my grandma, "Grandma, who do you think I look like?" Now my grandmother, who was the most amazing grandmother, turned and sharply said. "You look like you are my grandchild. You belong with this family." Thank god for that grandmother. Somehow she always knew the right thing to say to be able to be a band aid over a wound.

And still all these years later, I still don't look like my family. But I was looking a photo of my fiance and I, and maybe it is all those love feelings, so I could be wrong. But I think we look like we belong together. Not in the creepy they look like they are twins way. But in the way that we fit. We just fit together. We will be a family where we both belong. We have chosen to be this new family and I refuse to let either one of us ever feel like we aren't wanted. If/when we are blessed with children and there is an odd duck who maybe doesn't have the same hair color or the same built as the rest, it will be because they are special. Not the outcast of the family.