Friends who became family

It becomes abundantly clear that as we grow older we tend to lean more on friends and less on family. For many reasons, our parents have left us, we move far away or insight changes who we tell and what. 

I love my parents dearly but the last thing I want is for them to worry, so some things are shared with friends who have become a second family. 

I grew up with my siblings moving around. I never established close friends until my late teens and then having a a child at a young age where I started to change. I wanted to give him something I was missing. A feeling of community. Where you would leave your home and the neighbours said hello, where your parents could find you by asking your friends parents. 

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't robbed growing up.  I have amazing brothers and a beautiful sister but I lacked in knowing that social contact outside of them. 

Through both of my children, I grew.  I experienced that family isn't always determined by blood but by gestures of kindness, similarities and many days of laughter discovering we were not alone. 

Now in my 40's my closest friends through the kids, through work, through life are worth more than anything that can be purchased, searched for or given. I am thankful for my wonderful, kind, loving, patient friends who love me unconditionally as I do them.