My relationship with my biological family is complicated at best. If you had asked me seven years ago what I thought of them, I would have said they were complete assholes. But time, distance, and a lot of self-reflection have softened both my words and my heart. Selfishly, I try to understand them so that I can better understand myself. To paint a clearer picture of our dynamic, one of my favorite music videos as a preteen was Lindsay Lohan’s “Confessions of a Broken Heart.” Iykyk. A 00s masterpiece.
Over the years, I’ve had a lot of conflict with my family. We’re different people, and I’ve made peace with that fact. Our lived experiences and priorities are fundamentally different. Despite any efforts to bridge those gaps, the differences persist. But the strange thing about my family is that, no matter how much distance or time separates us, I always feel their presence, even when they aren’t physically near.
I come from a family of lifelong Chicagoans on my mother’s side—working class (who, in the last generation, have ascended to middle class), proud union trade workers. Mostly electricians and steelworkers, and more recently my mother, an educator. They built the city that I love so much. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t pass or interact with a building they’ve helped create—from Soldier Field to the Sears Tower, even the hotel lobby I’m writing this from.
Living in the same neighborhood my family did adds another layer to this. On evening walks, I often wonder what they saw when they walked these streets. What stores, now gone, did they frequent? I try to re-envision the stories they’ve told me about the neighborhood. Was that the corner with the butcher who had the best lamb? Is this the block where the tailor my Nana worked for was? How far was her walk to the diner after work? I retrace their steps in an attempt to be closer to them, especially when being with them physically feels too painful.
I know there’s some romanticization in all of this, but isn’t that what we do as humans? We romanticize everything. It’s how we cope when the pain is too much. But honestly, I mostly like knowing them as people, not just as family. I want to understand who they are, outside of their roles. In my favorite, rare moments with them, I love hearing about their interests and memories. I often wish I could have known my Nana before she became a mother. What did she enjoy doing? What was she reading? What did she dream of?
Listen, despite the complicated relationship I have with my family, I still want to make them proud. It wouldn’t be real of me to say I don’t care on some level. But it’s less about morality and more about legacy. I want to defy their expectations of what I could achieve, while also defying what society thinks someone like me should do.
It’s not just about proving them wrong or proving myself right—it’s about creating something bigger than myself. When I think about the buildings my family helped build, I’m reminded of where I come from. I want to defy their expectations, yes, but more than that, I want to create something lasting. My work and success are my own way of building something permanent in this world. It’s hard to compete with physical structures made of steel, but I welcome the challenge.
For a long time, I don’t think my family believed I would amount to much, yet they also held these inflated ideas of what I should be doing. I mostly felt that pressure from my mother’s side. My father, on the other hand, genuinely wanted a better life for me, but his way of willing that into existence was through tough love. He wanted me to excel academically but didn’t have the tools or means to support that, which often led to frustration for him. He wanted me to have a career and carry on the family name because, well, that’s why his family came to this country. It was on me to justify their decision. So, no pressure.
My father was adopted from Greece by a newly immigrated Greek family. He came to America during a time of great political and financial turmoil in Greece. Growing up there, he lived in a country still recovering from civil war. While parts of the economy were improving, where my father lived, that just wasn’t the case. I don’t know all of his stories, but the ones I do know are heartbreaking. He lost his birth parents, or so he was told, and was shuffled around, experiencing extreme poverty, emotional neglect, and abuse. When his adoptive parents brought him to America, he recalls nothing but joy—a joy I’ve learned more about through news clippings I found on Ancestry.com.
Much of my father’s adoptive family’s history was documented by local papers in the small town where they lived. They ran the town’s Greek restaurant, though it was more of a classic greasy spoon diner than a true Greek restaurant. I’m biased, but Greeks run a damn good diner—it’s practically in our DNA, like our love for the flag and the need to remind you, “We invented democracy, poetry, and literally everything.” My father’s adoption was a big deal in town, and it didn’t hurt that his adoptive parents’ diner was located next to the newspaper office.
Thanks to this documentation, I’ve been able to connect with my father in a very abstract and distanced way. Reading those articles gave me so much context for who he is, and in that, I feel like I understand him better. I won’t say all of my father’s actions are logical, but with the context of his life, they make more sense. And so, my once hardened heart has softened.
In all honesty, after a lot of work (and I’m saying this through gritted teeth), I’ve come to understand my parents. Given their life experiences, I don’t blame them for their absentee parenting. I don’t think they were ever given the love, energy, or fragility they needed. So, when it came time to give that to someone else, they simply couldn’t. This doesn’t excuse their behavior or paint them as helpless victims—we all make choices we’re accountable for. But reframing things this way gives me peace and space to understand the complexity.
Like it or not, my parents' struggles have become a pivotal part of my life—particularly my mother’s struggle with substance abuse. As proudly as I talk about my mother’s side, they also have a history of addiction. My mother was an addict for most of my life, which made connecting with her extremely difficult. In many ways, I became a parentified child, experiencing a lot of hands-off parenting. The effects of that are still something I am trying to understand.
While I’m still not particularly close to either of my parents or biological family, I feel deeply connected to them. I find ways to connect that don’t require talking—going on walks in the neighborhoods they frequented, making my favorite fakes (Greek lentil soup) and spanakopita, and watching their favorite shows like I Love Lucy. It’s all of the good and none of the bad, because frankly, I’ve had enough of the bad, and continuing to dwell on it isn’t healthy for me.
These moments have made more recent times with my family much better. The time we do spend together is sometimes more enjoyable now—there’s probably something to be said about boundaries here or marginal improvements. Whatever it may be,I can’t deny my family’s place in my life, for better or worse. All I can do is honor it the best way I know how—through hard work, passion, and making something out of nothing… although a giant mural in my home of a Greek goddess or god wouldn’t hurt.
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