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Repetition is neutral.

As with many things, it is only the application that causes the good or evil face of an abstract idea to come to life. Politics recycle themes of idealism and abuse, even as the issues change. Time plots onward regardless of whether civilization is repeating itself in the fall of another inflated superpower. Art mimics scale, subject, style in the quest for originality and generation specific inspiration. All things repeat, it is the nuance that defines the quality and sets the tone of the next iteration.

Family is one such repetition. Biologically we are science experiments of co-mingled DNA, the code of which replicates to seemingly infinite numbers to create our fathers nose, our mothers eyes, our grandmothers smile and our grandfathers laugh. We cannot escape our blood type any more than we can escape our need for oxygen or love. Yet, this familial repetition is not restricted to our physical assets. How many children swear they will not be like their parents when young? Yet most, at least 8 in 10, vote the same as their parents did as they come of age. The rebellion of today becomes the norm of tomorrow. It is the nuance that changes, not the pattern. Family is where we learn to tie our shoes, share with our friends, hate certain strangers and question inconsistency. Families replicate thought and action through their children.

My sense of family is in question as I grow ever like my family in mannerisms and ever apart from them in everything else. I buck the trend. My rebellion was barely there, yet I no longer think as I was silently taught. My days of fundamentalism are so far behind me that I often forget how far I was willing to go to apply my stark worldview. I did it regardless of who it hurt. I've now met the strangers I'm supposed to hate. The strangers are wonderful people hurt by ideas I hurled at them with no knowledge of "why" beyond my assurance that grey areas do not exist.

Family is biological, yet its function after birth does not always stay with the related. A family supports, loves, cries and encourages. My new task is to reformulate what "family" will mean for me, and now, in this quandary, I miss repetition. I miss the repetition of knowing who to call when I'm sad, whose name to put as my emergency contact, whose table to rely on for the hallmark moments that chronicle a life.

Tonight I am tired and sad at the prospect of so many unknowns. But it's too late to start hating again, to stop loving, to forget the world beyond the tight circle I always knew I'd have to break. So instead of bringing a lucky girl into my family, I hopefully will be welcomed as a lucky guy in someone elses. The repetition will go on, the nuances changed.