One with Family.

Adulthood to some extent almost took the better part of my life. The thing is, I was so engrossed in making it for myself and having life going on fine for me that I forgot what it meant to have fun. I was basically working round the clock, year in and year out. This made me miss out on my holidays with family as well as every other family time. At one point, my aunts complained and stylishly accused my mom of being the reason I keep away. The same complaint came up from my paternal relatives too. But then the reverse was the case because my unavailability became the reason my mom misses out on family gatherings.

The nature of my job then was pretty delicate that I barely get off and even when I do, the timing is never sufficient for travels or family holidays/time. My mom on her part likes travelling in groups and since I wasn't available, there's no one to coordinate the family trips. Hence, she stays put.

You see, one thing that I discovered with myself is that I bring life to the party, this made my relatives to always want me around. At first when I was still schooling, it was all fun and exciting but then being out of school meant that nobody would be responsible for me and I have to be responsible for myself. It became inherent that continuing to be unemployed and dependent will cost me my self respect. Thus, it was a trade off between fun and financial stability of which the latter won.

Moving on, the whole situation turned in my favour and I was able to strike a balance between work and fun when I fell out with my previous employer. Seeing how my family stood by me and protected me from organizational politics, I started replanning and restrategizing my life to give room for family alongside my job. Just like the Universe was also planning too, I got another job which allowed me my free time and also made me relocate back home which meant closer to family.

The first reunion that I did after my relocation was to let my daughter go for the weekend and holidays at my aunts. On one of my daughter's close to resumption, marking the end of her holidays, my mommy and I went to join her for the remaining few days. There's this local delicacy that's common among my dad's heritage which happens to be amongst my favourite dishes. On one of our past visits to my aunts, I got to know that my aunts love the delicacy too despite being from a different heritage. This made them not know how to prepare the dish and they expressed their disappointment which made me really concerned. They also talked about craving for the delicacy and I felt arranging one of the weekends to come cook it for them, while they watch me to learn would be a fun activity.

I told them about my intentions and they excitedly approved. We fixed a date and they promised to cancel all their activities for that day. True to their words they did and we did our little cook together. My aunties could not contain their excitement as they quickly called my other aunt in a different location to brief her on all that's going down.

The first thing that my aunt asked was about my job. She knew how it was with me and work then hearing I'm at my aunts during weekdays sounded really weird. She probably felt I'm no longer working but her sisters informed her that my job is still on and no issue. In order to be sure, she asked them to give me the phone so she can hear from the horse's mouth.

My aunt, from a distance not too far from where I was sitting, stretched the phone to me. I haven't even said hello and next thing was, “Hello Ese, are you good? You went to your aunties for the weekend on a weekday. Is everything ok at work?”

“Everything is fine aunt. It's just that we are having some electricity issues and being that nothing much happens at work on Fridays, I decided to start my weekend with my aunts on a Thursday from work.” I responded, while chuckling between words.

“Oh, that's really lovely. I'm quite impressed you made out time for your family. Please let these actions of yours remain going forward.”

“It will aunt, I promise”. We had a little chit chat afterwards and then concluded our calls. I never knew that actions of mine stuck in my aunt's subconscious because usually, whenever she's around with her family, they'll just call to inform my mom. She never bothers to invite us over because she knew due to my busy schedule we won't show up. But this time around, before she travelled down, she called my mom and still chatted me up that she will love us to be around when she's in town.

“Oh wow! Don't worry aunt, you will see us, we will surely make time to come.” I had responded without even considering my work break of which she brought to my notice. Regardless, the moment my aunt sent out the invite orally, I was going to take my chances, damn all consequences just to honour it. Luckily for me, we got a break at work for the festivities and I told my mom to pack her bags because we would be spending the holidays with my aunt and her family.

The whole experience to me is indeed a joyous moment because despite all the challenges with my health and finances which made my mom to initially withdraw from the trip, I still insisted that we would honour the invite and I won't leave her behind because I can't explain to her sisters why she didn't show up.

Seeing how keen I was to visit my aunts, my other siblings became interested. Thus, we all came together to plan our trip in style and comfort because it's quite a distance.

All things being equal, we arrived a few days before Christmas and we had a big party. The celebration was triple consisting of my aunt's birthday, her marriage anniversary and a family reunion. The whole extended family came through and we connected, we bounded plus most importantly, we had fun.

PS
All images are mine