For a while now I’ve had a tag, “family”, which I used to refer to things about… my parents, my sister, their pets, etc. For even longer, that’s all the word “family” meant to me — it shames me to admit that I never considered that my husband and myself are my family. We’re a family of two.

This misconception on my part is a large facet to the mirror-ball of problems I and we are dealing with. My concepts of “family”, “relationships”, husbands and wives and how they act toward eachother — all of these are drastically skewed. For the last week I’ve been purging the house of things that remind me (in negative ways) of my father’s house, my kin. Going along with that, I’ve created a new tag and renamed an old tag.

kin (n) — one’s family and relations. Referring to my blood relations, and their sundry hijinks.

our empire — short, possessive version of “the vast Signor Empire”, a joke between us. Referring to my family of Johan and myself. And our cat.