The Chosen Ones, And Why They Are So

I love my family. It has to be said. I love my crazy, unpredictable, statistical-anomaly-in-every-possible-area mother. I love my kind, distant, overly cerebral father and my perpetual cheerleader of a stepmother. I love my go-with-the-flow-and-you'll-never-have-a-problem eldest sister, and my dynamic, makes-me-dizzy middle-up sister, and, even though I don't think I'll ever quite understand them, I love my younger sisters.

I love my blunt, sometimes insensitive but good-hearted brother. I love my super-mom-super-wife-super-nice-person (and she really is!) sister in law. I love my prim, proper sister in law's mother (who I still don't know what to call, even after five years; I simply CANNOT bring myself to call such an upright, British, elderly person by their first name) and I love my party-boy nephews and I especially love my passionate, exuberant, fiercely loyal manic-depressive niece.

I do not love that my family are always trying to fix me. I know they love me - they DO it because they love me - but I don't always think they respect me. I am not broken. I do not need fixing. My body is bruised and battered, my brain is chipped and cracked, but my soul is intact.

When I break my finger trying to carry ten litres of water, I don't need Captain Hindsight to fly in and tell me I shouldn't have been doing that, or for well-meaning relatives to insist on going to the emergency room, even though I tell them repeatedly that I know my body, I can feel that it's not a bad break, and the only thing the hospital will be able to do is tape the fingers up. I want someone who'll tease me about having a stash of deuterium (a component of heavy water) and how he didn't know I was taking up terrorism, like Daniel does.

When I tell people that I don't want to go out for my birthday, that I'm not feeling well enough to celebrate, I don't need people to assume that I'm saying, "please push harder to make it bigger and more fabulous". When I say that what I really want to do on my birthday is stay in bed and play Pokemon and eat potato chips, I don't need people to react with horror and say, "You can't do that! You have to do something fun, something like everyone else likes!" I want someone who'll laugh and say, "Then do it!" like Dee does.

When I go on a date, I don't need people to phone me every half hour and ask me if I'm still safe, or to wait up until I get home. I want someone who'll tell me to have a good time, like Cam does.

When I'm whinging about how much weight I've put on in the last year, I don't need people to tell me not to go overboard with dieting and exercise. I want someone who'll say, "You're lovely, but if you feel you need to lose weight, I'll help you, and give you any advice that you ask for, and trust you to be sensible enough not to take it too far," like James does.

When I'm in an antisocial phase, when I'm not feeling well enough to be out and about, I don't need to be dragged out "to have fun, for {my} own good", or have someone text me a dozen times a day to ask if I'm feeling better yet. I want someone who'll let me be alone for a couple weeks, and trust that our relationship is strong enough to survive any absences, like Elle does.

When I do something stupid, that I'm really really embarrassed about, I don't need people to try and soothe my ruffled feathers under the mistaken impression that humiliation is fatal. I want someone who'll laugh at / with me and tell me I'm such a loser, and that was a really dumb thing to do, like Ricky does.

My family think that, at the age of nearly thirty, I need to be coddled.

My friends know better.