Gabrielle Ho­sein

I've had to think a lot about fam­i­ly to­day. Not that I want­ed to. I have such re­duced of­fice hours, now de­pen­dent on when some­one can look af­ter Ziya, that when I have time to work, I want 100 per cent of my mind to get the most done in as lit­tle time as pos­si­ble. But back to fam­i­ly. Be­cause of my ex­pe­ri­ences grow­ing up, I'm to­tal­ly ded­i­cat­ed to hon­esty, open­ness, san­i­ty and func­tion­al­i­ty in my own re­la­tion­ship and lit­tle nu­clear unit. I'm in­cred­i­bly proud that Stone and I have had these things for the whole time we have been to­geth­er. Break­ing fam­i­ly pat­terns can be very hard to do, but I've done it with the help of good friends, my part­ner, good metaphors, Lau­ryn Hill songs, and the for­giv­ing uni­verse.

I'm filled with joy that Zi may ex­pe­ri­ence hav­ing a fam­i­ly life with two par­ents. Peace and love and sta­bil­i­ty be­tween us is what I want for her as part of my life achieve­ment. To achieve this so far, I've had to de­vel­op clear-eyed un­der­stand­ing of what un­healthy fam­i­ly re­la­tion­ships look like. I'm not an en­abler, but I'm not an aban­don­er. I want to de­mand hon­esty, but I'd rather things be un­said just to keep the peace. I feel great com­pas­sion and love, but al­so anger and dis­gust. I'm so done, yet with­out a doubt my fam­i­ly can al­ways count on me. So, while bal­anc­ing ba­by and work, I'm al­so try­ing to fig­ure how pro­tect my own need for self-preser­va­tion, still­ness, safe­ty. So many fam­i­lies are just like this. Com­pli­cat­ed and messy, hap­py and hurt­ful, full of truth-telling and lies, wrongs and ac­cep­tance. In the mix, things that shouldn't hap­pen do and peo­ple say noth­ing and the most vul­ner­a­ble have to find their way on their own, in full knowl­edge of every­one else. We tol­er­ate so much that shouldn't be in the name of fam­i­ly. And while I'm not an aban­don­er, I'm not a res­cuer ei­ther.

All I want for Ziya, Stone and me is a qui­et life, to­geth­er. Ex­act­ly what we have now, but for­ev­er. Still, it's not al­ways so sim­ple. Fam­i­ly can be full of chaos as much as love. How much do I take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for oth­ers who won't for them­selves? How much can I help? When do I say enough? Can I live with un­truths and un­saids and un­fixed pasts and presents and fu­tures? What is the pri­or­i­ty around which all these de­ci­sions should be made? I lost cru­cial time at work to­day, dis­tract­ed by these thoughts.

Per­haps be­cause of who I am or be­cause I have some­thing to learn from this sit­u­a­tion or be­cause things are un­fold­ing as they should, or per­haps just be­cause this is my fam­i­ly, I won­der, is my role sim­ply to breathe, be grate­ful and give?