I have four godsisters and one godbrother, a godmother and a godfather.
Okay, they're not really my godfamily anymore because I'm over 18 and technically an adult and so if my parents suddenly died (which God has been pretty merciful about so far), I obviously wouldn't need to be handed over to anyone to be looked after. But I still consider them my family even though we don't talk or interact as much as we used to because I know they do still love me and would take care of me if I needed any help. It also helps that our parents still have very strong ties and connections with each other.
I bring them up because I was thinking about some periods of time when most of us did spend a lot of time together. For me I think it's where some of our family kind of dynamics really took root (well, at least me for me, it did - I can't speak on behalf of the rest of my sisters). Every summer when I was younger my family and I would lead a team out to Arizona to the Navajo Reservation to host a Vacation Bible School for the kids and adults in the area. We would go with different teams of people each year, all from different churches in the NYC/LI/NJ area, and there were a number of years where different members of my godfamily would come and join the team.
Since my older sisters and I were so young (elementary/middle school age) at the time, we learned a lot from our godsiblings (but especially my godsisters) who were much older than us. I looked up to them so much. They took care of me, gave me attention (which, as the youngest, I loved, of course), and taught me things I never knew how to do (I think Jess, the oldest, might have taught me how to braid and french braid hair - I'm not quite sure, but I definitely know I asked her to braid my hair a lot during those summers because I liked it so much). I can remember significant moments where I was reprimanded by my godmother (I was so scared of her), and felt embarrassed by my godsiblings when I said something or did something to cause myself to blush or want to run away. Great family stuff. We bonded like there was no tomorrow.
I'm not being sarcastic, I promise. I absolutely loved spending time with them. We were out in Arizona for a good ten days. And so, here's why I'm telling you the truth that I really bonded with them: on the night we'd get back from Arizona (and only during the years that my godsisters were definitely there), after I'd get into bed because I was supposed to go to sleep, I would cry. And believe me, I tried to stop myself. Even though I was little I hated how sensitive I was and didn't like it when I cried, and it seemed embarrassing especially since I shared a room with my two sisters and couldn't really muffle the sound.
I remember being so embarrassed, too, when my parents finally came in and asked what was wrong because they heard me crying from down the hall - only for me to tell them that I missed my godsisters so much after not being around them for several hours. You see, we had returned to NYC before dinnertime, and so I had just seen them several hours prior (do you see why I felt so embarrassed?). I hadn't even gone a full day or even half a day before I started intensely missing them. Their active presence in my daily life for ten straight days had such an impact on me that I couldn't help but feel some kind of vacuum from spending a night without them. Ten days. It was not even two weeks and yet I had such a strong connection to them that it seemed wrong (and completely silly) to suddenly have to depart from them.
Here's why I bring this up, though. That experience came to mind recently because it's as close as it gets (especially as old as I am) to what I experienced last week coming back to my apartment in Binghamton from my mid-west and NYC Christmas adventures.
That's all I have to say.
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