Friends are great. For example, some friends cook a "very good" lamb ragout. You go on holiday with one. Or friends are not too bad to stagger as a penis disguised by inner cities to celebrate stag parties. Best of all: You can choose your friends completely free, and very best, you can choose who will not become a friend (people who are disguised as penises running through inner cities for example).
With family, that's different. Family, this is a messy knot of people with an irritating music taste, a curious style of clothing and strange political views, people with whom you can get into your hair since childhood. Perhaps a few of family members are, by and large, adorable and feel Leonard Cohen as greatest musician of all time, n y had outrageous luck. But in normal case, family is stark opposite of a Rama advertisement.
Family, this is recurring me of dispute, se are Christmas evenings, which would have been more relaxed alone at home with a merlot, se are endless summers, of which you later only remember car rides in rear, in child seat, heat flickering Over burner, next to a puke sister. Family, this is bror who constantly promises to call back, and never does, this is cousin who makes his cross at AfD, se are parents, who one loves alternating and condemns and n loves again, like such a person.
Family is not a voluntary association. And that's just magic of it. The urban defiant "my friends are my family" cannot vote for this reason: Because family is not a carefully curated collection of individuals with an impressive record collection, but totally mistaken idea of surrendering to people with whom one Might not even want to be seen in same federal state. In principle, a completely disturbed plan that cannot work. Family, this is Anarchischste Alliance of our society. That is why I am really on a line with Christian pouting parties: The family is holy. You don't grow up in discussions with your best friend, wher you like Megasüße beach dress or pleated skirt better or wher you "shoot mega" today or rar "a cozy power".
Darth Vader or Lord VoldemortWhat ir own, respect, nor a battle term, values are, one notices only when one has to defend m, and nowhere is more vehemently operated than within family. That you don't want to wear a headscarf just because it's mor. That you cannot imagine a life in country because you remember eternal waiting for only bus on day, which brings you to nearest small town, a whole half life you have waited for this bus. That you'd rar argue loudly than stand still, like stepfar. Family creates and creates one.
And this is exactly what makes it possible to find out exactly what family is now and who belongs to it: Family, se are living beings for which one feels responsible for long term. In which one feels same, although one cannot explain why one shakes divorce of someone with whom one so absolutely does not share anything except a common grandmor. In same way, and fortunately I can distance myself from a "Christian" "social" union, se people do not have to be related to one. Family, this is also son of friend, where re is not even a genetic reason, why one suddenly worries about things like Übertrittszeugnisse or at one time willingly discusses wher Voldemort or Darth Vader is hotter.
Family, this can also be old neighbour who you have met in your studies and after whose health you are still regularly inquired about, four cities and 20 years later. Family: These can be cousins, children, parents, aunts. Or just Patchworkkinder, old shepherd, mor of best friend. They are people who do not have to consider wher y are re for m. For which one constantly makes sacrifices, without it ever feels so right after sacrifice. Which one can readily withstand for a lifetime, despite unfunny gay jokes and pungent axe smell.
Those who demand, rub, bring to limit and provoke, also teach one to grip, to question, to stand up for mselves, sometimes also: to delimit mselves. Family, that's a shining, stubborn "anyway!". And only people in whom this sentence is not an empty pathos, but deeply felt truth.
Earlier columns by Ronja von Roenne are published in volume "Today is unfortunately bad" (S. Fischer, 2017). On time online, she will continue her column every 14 days.
Date Of Update: 08 August 2018, 12:00
