On family, traditions, and the places we belong
No one assigned seats at our dinner table. We just have them.
My dad sits at one end. Caleb sits at the other, closest to the outlet, because of course he does. There is almost always a laptop involved, and apparently dinner is no reason to risk falling below an acceptable battery percentage. My mom sits across from me and Holden. Holden sits beside me. Technically.
In reality, his chair somehow migrates closer to mine every single night until our elbows start colliding and I have to push him back toward his own place.
No one ever sat us down and decided any of this. It just happened. Over time, we found our spots.
This is the shape of us.
For the last couple of years, the five of us have lived on top of one another in a house that was never really meant to hold us all this way. My parents. Me. The boys. Bedrooms have been shared. Things have been stored wherever they fit. Privacy has become a relative concept. Dinner happens around the same table, in the same seats, night after night.
My mom usually cooks. Sometimes my dad grills, and Holden usually wants to help. There is often garlic bread because the kids love it, although this does not prevent them from complaining about whatever else is on the plate and then asking if they can have ramen instead.
Caleb will eat steak as often as anyone is willing to provide it. He sprinkles on a truly unreasonable amount of salt and will literally lick the plate clean.
Holden spends dinner asking everyone if he can try their food, even if he has eaten the exact same thing approximately seventy times before. Then, when he likes something, there is no subtlety about it.
He is all in.
He makes sounds. His eyes close. Butter drips down his chin. Barbecue sauce somehow ends up on his cheeks, his hands, and occasionally in places that seem physically impossible. Then he wipes those hands directly on his clothes despite years of being informed that his shirt is not, in fact, a napkin.
We watch him eat and laugh because there is really nothing else to do.
The boys always ask for ginger ale.
Always.
Some nights, dessert becomes part of the ritual too. Holden and I make brownies, or I throw pre-shaped cookie dough onto a tray so we can have warm cookies after dinner. We pass the plate around and negotiate over the last one.
For a while, I would sometimes bring Crumbl home from work, and we would all taste that week’s flavors and rank them like our opinions carried actual authority.
None of these things ever felt important enough to call traditions while they were happening.
They were just... things we did.
But that is probably how traditions begin.
Quietly. Accidentally. Repeated often enough that one day you realize they belong to a specific version of your life.
Some nights, dinner is terrible.
Someone is tired. Someone is complaining about the food. Someone gets snippy. The kids argue. An adult gets irritated. There are evenings when all five of us would probably be happier eating silently in separate rooms.
But there are other nights when we just laugh.
We have discussed 3D-printing concepts at that table. Holden has told wildly exaggerated stories about school. We have asked Caleb questions like who his favorite teacher is or what his favorite subject is, only to get the same offended response every time.
“Ugh! Why do you always have to ask me that?”
Caleb does not like choosing favorites. Apparently this is an unreasonable burden we continue placing on him.
These are the conversations that fill the space between bites. Nothing profound. Nothing anyone would think to write down while it is happening.
And soon, this arrangement is going to change.
That is one of the strangest things about buying the house. I have spent so much time thinking about what we are moving toward that I sometimes forget there is also something we are moving away from.
There will be a new table. New chairs. A different room. The boys and I will probably develop new assigned seats without ever assigning them. Caleb will almost certainly locate the nearest outlet. Holden will probably still inch his chair toward mine until I remind him that I need room to use my own arms.
Some things survive a change of address. But my parents will not be sitting across from us every night. My dad will not be at the other end. My mom will not be across from me.
And that is different.
For a long time, I thought of this living arrangement as temporary. Something we were doing until I could get somewhere else. Until I saved enough. Until I found the house. Until the next part started.
And it was temporary.
But temporary does not mean insignificant.
We built routines here. The boys grew here. We laughed here. We annoyed each other here. We learned exactly how close five people can live before everyone starts longing for a door they can close.
And somehow, without anyone deciding it, we became this little unit around the table.
This shape.
I think that is what I will miss.
Not necessarily the crowded house. Not the lack of privacy. Not sharing a bedroom with an eight-year-old and his glowing jellyfish.
But the automatic things.
Knowing where everyone will sit. Knowing who will reach for what. Knowing that Holden will be too close. Knowing Caleb will probably have something plugged in. Knowing someone will ask for ginger ale. Knowing there is a decent chance Holden will leave the table wearing part of his dinner.
The ordinary choreography of people who have eaten enough meals together that nobody has to think about where they belong.
Soon, the boys and I will have a new table. A new house. A new version of normal.
And I am ready for it. I really am.
But I think there will be nights when I look around that new table and remember exactly where everyone used to sit. My dad at one end. Caleb at the other. My mom across from me. Holden pressed too close at my side.
And me, right there in the middle.
This was the shape of us.
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