How I Became a Chuncle
There is an old saying that states you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family.
Well, that is not necessarily true.
I have a large family.
Not my immediate family.
There were my mother and father, my sister, my brother, and me.
And, of course, multiple cousins on both sides of the family.
To me, that’s not anything out of the ordinary.
As we grew into adults, people fell in love, got married (doesn’t always work in the order, but I digress), and had kids.
And sometimes, even under the best circumstances, some got divorced.
After my divorce, my family life took a turn in a different direction (but in a good way).
Like a small crack on a windshield over time, the family lines began to fan out.
When I was a kid, you either spent time with your mother’s side of the family or your father’s. Never both at the same time (except for maybe weddings and funerals).
When I was married, we spent most holidays with my wife’s family.
When I was separated (eventually divorced), my brother-in-law (since deceased, RIP Marty) said now would be a good time to reconnect with my family.
My kids were young (eight, six, and four) when I separated from my wife, so that’s exactly what I did.
My family has big parties to celebrate events. Holidays, birthdays, any reason really to get everyone together for a barbecue or house party.
It was no longer mom’s side or dad’s side of the family; it was both sides of every family. Married and divorced couples, everyone was welcome.
My children assumed all the kids they played with were related to each other, but they were not.
Some were from one side of the family, some from the other side, but not the same family.
So it was somewhat of a surprise that, years later, a woman from my brother-in-law’s family started dating a man from my sister-in-law’s family.
“Wait,” my daughter asked me when she heard about it, “um, aren’t they related?”
At this point we could have used a crime board, with pictures tied together with red nylon string to denote who belongs to which family.
Just to be clear, the two people dating were not related.
That was one change to our dynamic we could live with, but it wasn’t the only one.
When my daughter Amanda was still a teenager, she became very close to one of her non-cousins, Heather. They had always been friends, but for some reason, one summer, they were inseparable.
At a family barbecue, when Heather saw Amanda, she yelled across the lawn, “Chousin!”
That stopped me in my tracks.
“What the hell is a chousin?” I asked Amanda.
“It’s a chosen cousin,” Amanda replied as she raced over to hug Heather.
That’s cute, I thought, until I made the horrific realization a few seconds later…
...that would make me a Chuncle.
So I guess they were wrong, you can actually choose your family after all.
