There was a moment during my Tahoe trip last weekend for the Fourth of July when Matt, who is basically acting Dad as he was the weekend planner and former Tahoe resident, said, “When we’re on a trip together, we’re family. You take care of your family.” The context doesn’t matter, the point was that us friends are the family we’ve chosen. I love it.
The weekend was one of those—like my birthday in Big Sur—where everything just fell into place. 
The drive up was easy if exhausting, we set our stuff down and got onto a boat where we had beers and cruised the gorgeous waters of a lake I’d never been on. The weekend was just easy from there, with boating every day, great setups on the beach for the Fourth of July, adventures at night in the local scenery, hanging out on the deck of the cabin we rented, delicious food planned by Mom (aka Natty). Inside jokes were made (trundling!), new friends were made, terrible drinks were made—and amazingly enough, no one got terribly sunburned! Laughter and fun and love was all around us.
I’m beyond grateful to have deep friendships that feel like family. Friendships where you can relax into who you are. Even when times got tense—and they did—within this entire group there’s an overriding sense of ‘that’s just who s/he is, and that’s okay.’ And there’s really nothing more like family than that kind of unconditional love.
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