Family

When you're an adult, and when you live away from "home," you start to adopt surrogate families. Groups that you're a part of take on familial qualities as you share your life with these people. They're generally temporary ties, but some loyalty remains even after life moves us on.

I'm feeling pulled between families. My actual family, the one I am related to by blood, requires me there as we remember my grandfather. And I too feel that I need to be there with them. But I think that we will define the appropriate length of my stay differently. After the main funeral events, I have other obligations pulling me home: the choir that I was a part of and that in some ways was like a family is performing their Christmas concert, and I really want to be there to support them. The next day my major, those at school who are taking what I took, is having a Christmas dinner, and I really want to join them because at one time this group was an important family to me and I like to keep myself in the group just a little bit. I'm not just being selfish in my desire to attend these functions; there's a family loyalty there as well. But I don't think that my biological family will understand these other obligations that I feel I am under. I think they'll expect me to stay with them the whole weekend, being there not just for the funeral but for all the related family time together. I'm being pulled in several directions at once. It doesn't help that we're talking about two completely different cities.

The thing about these extra families is that there is really nothing holding us together but nostalgia. My true family will be my family no matter what, but if I stop showing interest in the other reunions, it won't be very long until I'm alienated from the group. It's easy to skip it once and never go back (in one case), or never be invited back (in the other).
On the other hand, though, I guess I need to look at the long term investment. If I neglect my true family who has invested in me for my entire life and will be there for the rest of it, in favour of supporting some people with whom I used to share something important but now are no longer really a part of my life and won't factor very largely in it in the future, I am not making very good choices. It is not worth sacrificing something important to prolong something relatively unimportant.
And no solution will make everyone happy. Sigh.

Update They didn't expect as much from me as I thought they would. I decided to skip the choir concert but come home in time for the dinner, and I ended up staying longer than my Dad or my brother did. The choir concert turned out to be a gong show due to treacherous roads, and if I had tried to come home for it I probably still wouldn't have been there. They had a mini concert in chapel the next week that I was able to make it for, so I felt like I was still being faithful to them.