How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community

by Mia Birdsong

I’m trying to step outside the narrow list of possibilities that we’ve been given. Part of this means squashing the relationships hierarchy that says a monogamous romantic/sexual relationship is infinitely more important than the other relationships in our lives. For me, that doesn’t mean diminishing my marriage, but elevating other relationships.

I wonder what we are missing out on by not clarifying the expectations and boundaries of our friendships and our hopes for those relationships.

What’s made my relationships with nonblood family really good and juicy and useful, and just giving me life, is that they’re intimate. At the core of it is that I can be vulnerable, and put all my shit out there, and not be judged for it, and have it held.