On family

I am at the tail end of one of the busiest weeks of school that I can remember in my life and happy to take a blogging break. Although I think I remember one week my junior year of college fall semester that I was more sleep deprived and caffeine fueled and overloaded with work than I am now. The difference being that I am 7 years older now and can't pull all nighters anymore, lest I forget where I am, crash the car, and start some sort of city-wide disaster while driving to school.

So I wasn't that helpful over Thanksgiving this year because of all the work I had to do, but my siblings sure were. Check out my sister's blog here for an account of how awesome it was in the Chen/Sheu/Chun household. I must say, food is a love language in our family and it was mightily poured out on us!

When you don't live locally from your family, the nature of the visits always change. I realized this long ago when I went away to college, but it's becoming more evident to me as I get older. Every time I spend time with loved ones, I realize something new about myself and get a fresh perspective on who I am because of how much my loved ones have affected me. And I count myself lucky to say that I think their influence has been mostly good. It's also always fun to observe little quirky things about your parents and see if you're like that too. For example, at the end of our trip, we were joking about my mom's addiction to email and how my siblings are equally obsessive about certain things, like a new Wii game or facebook. I quickly agreed that this was the case for me too- but then couldn't think of a single example for an addiction of mine. In fact, I think I'm sort of the opposite. I don't have the attention span to do anything for too long or I will get bored real quick. Maybe it's some form of adult ADD. I could also have my Dad's love-to-work, can't sit still sort of thing. But then again there are lots of times when I sit real still when I should be working (i.e. practicing).

Our families affect us so much as people and its fascinating to see how we as individuals take some of those traits that are passed down to us and make them our own. As we grow older, self-discovery is an inevitable thing that helps us gain perspective about who we really are and why we are where we are in life. When I last spent time with my in-laws in New Jersey, we did what has now become a habit when we get together with Paul's mom and sister- sit on the floor, share prayer requests, hold hands, and pray out loud together. Usually, the prayer session ends with crying, hugging, and verbal "I love you"s. This kind of expressiveness is something that my family culturally is not accustomed to, so at first I used to think that the extreme intimacy of spiritual sharing and verbally declaring our love for each other in a family was really weird. Now I am blessed and thankful for it every time, and I can see the way that their closeness has shaped Paul's faith and is reflected in how very expressive he is with his thoughts and emotions. I also saw the way he enjoyed our time this weekend with my family and the comfort and ease with which everybody interacts. It's a beautiful thing to share, and when we grow our own family someday (keyword is someday), I hope we'll be able to pass down the good from both.