La Familia

For such a small month, February devotes a lot of itself to anti-single propaganda. There's the obvious source (Valentine's Day) that can seem manufactured just to cause melancholy in those of us in non-romantic situations.

Where I live, today is "Family Day," and although it doesn't carry the commercial appeal of Valentine's Day, it has the added import of being a statutory holiday. I think the idea of "family" is flexible enough these days (at least in this town) to include a range of previously excluded types:

As a rabid anti-bigot, it's a delicious privilege to live in a place where these differences of familia are becoming non-issues. But the obvious deficiency is exclusion of non-pet-owning singles. Those of us who would love to have a stable enough home to have a pet, but just don't. Those of us who, perhaps, don't like pets. Those of us who have a household consisting only of ourselves.

But even we have family: the supportive unit that we create for ourselves, carving space into our lives for people with whom we have connections akin to kinship. What bothers me is that the idea of "family" usually doesn't allow for this, and these deep connections don't get the respect that they deserve for being relationships as strong as blood or marriage.

So Happy Family Day to all the singles out there. I hope you spent it the way I did: cherishing some new moments of laughter and love with the closest beings in your world.