Hello, dear readers, and welcome to Thursday! It has been another long week at work already. I ended up calling off sick yesterday, in part because I woke up feeling like I was definitely teetering on the edge of a bad cold, but also because I just needed a break.

This past weekend, my mom’s extended family gathered at my aunt and uncle’s house in northeast Iowa for a reunion. I was nervous about this going in – several members of my extended family are pretty politically opposed to the idea of my existence as a queer, trans person, and I wasn’t sure how some of them would react to my husband and I showing up. We also weren’t sure until the day of whether Grandma would be able to make it to the reunion itself, which added to the anxiety – we were pretty sure peace would be kept for her sake if she was there, but if she wasn’t, things felt a lot less predictable.

I am pleased to report that it actually ended up going much better than we anticipated. We got to see Grandma, who was thrilled that so much of her family turned up (including a half-brother she hadn’t seen since she was 17 – she is nearly 96 now!). We got to talk to the family members we really wanted to see, were pleasantly surprised by several people (not that we expected them to behave badly, but we just didn’t know what to expect one way or the other), and the people we were most worried about interacting with we never ended up crossing paths with, which was perfect. Nova was a huge hit with the great-grandkids (and everyone else), and she did great with all the attention from the kiddos – we knew she was good with kids individually, but she’d never been swarmed by them before, and she was absolutely perfect.

Family is complicated. My relationship with my extended family has been largely nonexistent since I came out, although there are certain family members I’m hoping to re-establish and maintain more of a connection with. As someone to whom chosen family is incredibly dear, family, to me, is the people you choose who choose you back. Family of origin can be chosen family (though they aren’t always), and I think this weekend helped me to see that more of my family of origin than I thought might be in that category. It was also really lovely to be able to bring my partner (and my dog) to a place that was so dear to me as a kid – my aunt and uncle are living on the farm that my grandparents lived on for most of my childhood, and I have a lot of happy memories associated with the place itself.

Anyway, I’m going to leave it there for this week. Here are some photos of Nova being a great travel buddy and enjoying the creek at the farm: