Family
Sunday has always been a family day in my life. Back home in Costa Rica Sunday means you have to go to church and watch the football games in the afternoon, of course with a cup of coffee in your hand. Over in Denmark it was not, Sunday was more about hanging out with friends because the so-called family days where either birthdays where we would go out to grandma's house, or some Tuesdays where the building where we lived would have a group dinner were one of the families would cook for the others and each week the family to cook would change. When I went to Japan, the family I lived with for a couple of days over in Nagasaki told me that the most important day for family normally is Saturday because Sunday is a day everyone goes their way, be it to be with friends, boyfriend or girlfriend or to just maybe relax and get ready for the week.
I have been a part of many families outside of my own and could not be more grateful for them to open up their lives to me. My danish family is a huge part of my life and taught me a lot of amazing things, one of the most important ones being culture shock and change. I believe family as one of the most important things in life changes and adapts. When my parents got divorced I felt unsure about what the future was going to be like, uncomfortable, weird and so many other not so nice ideas came to mind. The truth: it is amazing!
My uncle and I became closer, one of my closest friends dad and I became super close, my mom and I are still amazingly close, and even though I don't see him as often, my dad and I actually have a much more honest and conversational relationship than before. I believe that (like Will Smith said in an amazing presentation he has online) "the best things and feelings in life are all across that mental barrier we call fear". I do not wish for peoples parents to split up, or for a child to be born with split up parents. I wish for everyone to have people around them to help, guide and support them, THAT is what family truly is. Yes your blood relatives matter and they will always be so, but the people you love and care for most because they have been there in the best and worst times are not necessarily the family you were "born with".
P.S. The picture below is from this year and if you look close enough at how happy everyone in there is, you will see that in that moment, we were all family (some are blood related, some are not... still does not matter).
