BEING PART
OF A FAMILY.

To me, being part of this family means a lot of things.

It means: eating breakfast together, listening to my dad's weird music, biking to school together, gardening with mom, picking olives with my sisters, a lot of facetiming, a lot of cooking together, especially sitting at the table together. But it mostly means always having company.

Growing up in this household was coming home from school, probably with 1 or 2 friends, instantly smelling the random Indian recipe my dad was trying which he found on youtube (explained in a language he doesn't understand), my mom next to my dad opening a bottle of wine while catching up with family over the phone, my older sister with her 2 or 3 friends secretly smoking in her room and my younger sister probably practising the guitar in the living room.

And then, without it being discussed with my parents, everybody would stay for dinner. Even though they would roll their eyes and say "Vous faites chier les filles !!", everybody would always be more than welcome to stay.

I think that what my parents didn't realise was that we were just copying them. Because before them, I was the one rolling with my antisocial teenage eyes whenever my mom would say "I invited the guests to come up for dinner!" or "Remember our friends from Brussel/Italy/Canada/Spain/Japan/Literally anywhere? They're coming over tonight!"

And that's where my sisters and I got it from.

Fast forward to today, we unfortunately don't live together anymore. But fortunately enough, my parents have found and created a place where they can do what they love and what they have taught me and my sisters to love too.