Fish and Family Fits (or, Having Fits With Fish and Family)

Ben:

Recently, Esther and I set up our 30-gallon fish tank. You’d be surprised how much planning goes into establishing a tank. First, you have to make sure the fish have an adequate life support system, such as filters to cycle waste out of the water, a heater to maintain a mild tropical temperature throughout the year, and an air pump to oxygenate the water. You then have to treat the water by adding bacteria and removing the chlorine. Add some rocks, some decorations, and an overhead light, and you’re good to go! Almost.

Even with all the right components in place, you still need to let the tank sit for a bit to let all the chemicals, pumps, and filters do their respective things in order to be ready to receive its residents. However, you can’t throw just any fish in there. You can’t pick too many or you’ll overwhelm the tank, you can’t mix aggressive fish with passive or fragile fish, and you’ve got to choose fish that will thrive in the environment you’ve set up.

Well, we followed some great advice from Jack’s in Huber Heights (yeah, it’s a plug, sue me), and picked fish (and frogs) compatible with the tank and one another. Even following everything by the numbers, it still took time for everyone to acclimate to one another. Some fish hid in the corners of the tank while others grew uncharacteristically aggressive. Eventually, though, everyone got comfortable with one another and we have one big happy aquatic family.

What on earth does that have to do with anything? Well, that’s just fish; consider the dynamics of setting up a habitat for a family of five!

If you’ve read our previous blog posts, you know that through great effort (and support from friends and family) we were able to set up our human tank, complete with all the appropriate life support features (plumbing, power, furniture, and especially Wi-Fi). In addition, we had thoughtful conversations with the kids to make sure they were indeed comfortable with our two families merging. We took all the appropriate steps, and yet it's taken some time for everyone to find their niche in the family and the household overall. One member will need space while another feels lost in the mix. Someone isn’t happy about this arrangement or that, while others feel simply overwhelmed about the strangeness and newness of the situation.

So, is this an utter disaster? Did we grossly miscalculate? Are we DOOOMED!

Certainly not.

I’m sure this is common in most blended family situations. Even people with the best of dispositions (or kids - ours fall into this category, I’m happy to say) will find acclimating to a new family and living dynamic challenging at times; change on any level is usually taxing, even if it’s good.

So, my first bit of advice on this or any other subject is: DON’T PANIC!

[From my first blog:]

The only exceptions are:

1. You or someone near you has caught fire. Or you AND someone near you has caught fire. In either case, extinguish yourself first, then help the person near you. Trying to do so in the opposite order won’t be very productive. If the person near you wasn’t on fire to begin with, you’ll wind up catching them on fire; if they were on fire, then the two of you combined will most likely combust even faster. Come to think of it, panicking doesn’t do much good in this situation. 

2. Either a large asteroid is headed for the earth; an alien invasion force is, well, invading; or the Hadron Collider in Geneva has spawned a world-eating black hole. In any of these cases, it is perfectly acceptable for you to panic. Of course, it won’t affect the outcome, but if it makes you feel better, go for it. 

3. Finally, Milli Vanilli gets back together. Trust me, of everything I’ve mentioned thus far, this frightens me the most. I’ll be setting up a hotline. In case any of you catch wind of this world-ending event, WARN ME.

Second bit of advice: if you’re a parental unit in this situation, unless someone is clearly crossing the line, roll with things. Give everyone around you a moment to breathe. Address the nit-picky stuff once everyone’s had a chance to settle in, and, even then, consider if it's something you need to nitpick.

Third: if you’re in a relationship with another parental unit, work together! I’ve been blessed with a wife who possesses equal parts fun and common sense – an excellent combination to have when you’re dealing with pre-teens/teens. I enjoy our level of free-flowing communication and it has been invaluable in getting our household up and running.

So, how are we doing? We’re just like everyone else.  We have great days and we have not-so-great days, just like a normal family.

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Esther:

"...just like a normal family."

I'm gonna have to stop right there.  Do you know what it's like to be "just like a normal family"?  This is something I am not yet qualified to write much about because, until now, I've had no experience. In stories, when the main character's life has been a series of hardships and then that person stumbles out into a happy ending, the reader is left to assume the protagonist magically figures out how to behave in the happiness of normalcy.

Heh.

There's something I bet psychologists have always wanted to do, but of course for ethical reasons can't do, and that's to teach a young child all the wrong words for things and then watch the results. This is not far removed from my sum of experiences. Having had a childhood in which I was isolated from most worldly/pop cultural things yet regularly exposed to some harmful things, I was an odd mixture of naive and streetwise when I was set loose into the world. That acquaintance with harm and distrust of the innocuous heavily influenced the choices I made; those choices then reinforced my existing beliefs about the world. This is a typical pattern for humans everywhere.

Now, at some point, a person who has started down a broken road will reach his or her first real conscious choice.  There is more brokenness down that direction, or an easier road this way.  Unless you're a fool, you'll choose the easier road, of course...if you're self-aware enough by this point to see it really is easier.  Maybe you've traveled so long down an uneven path you've developed a permanent limp, and it would hurt to walk a smooth road.

I refused, in the quiet in-between time before I met Ben, to start down any more broken roads.  Granted, I didn't know much about well-adjusted relationships, but I knew I wanted one, and that had to be half the battle right there.  What I didn't account for was how ingrained my limp had become by the time I'd met him, and couldn't have guessed how long it would take to unlearn.

We've arrived now, in a normal, well-adjusted, healthy family, except that I keep having to learn everything.  Days stretch into weeks and my muscles grow sore as I brace myself for harm that will not come.  Words have truer meanings, tones are safe, and I laugh at myself, this fish out of water that I've become, this soldier back from the war who finds peacetime strange.  I see why so many people from dysfunctional pasts don't venture out of the familiar.  It's hard work to learn this new language of living; harder than diet and exercise, harder than anything else I've done that was good for me.  However, I'm only a month into it and I feel results.

I'm not much of an advice-giver, but this I will offer: chase after health.  Run hard after it, and tackle it, and in those recurring terrifying moments when you don't trust in it, grip it even harder.

It is the most amazing thing you will ever feel.