Actress-vlogger Rica Peralejo may have grown up in a closely-knit family that it is quite painful for her not to attend special family occasions.
This is what Peralejo seems to drive at as she talked about the importance of family to her, as per her Instagram post today, Dec. 20, where she shared a snapshot of herself while “ugly crying.”
“Me sending my ugly crying photo to fam in the [United States]. My nephew got married and I couldn’t make it [because] my [vaccination] schedule didn’t make it,” she said.
“I am one of them. There is nothing I want more but to be with my fam in the U.S. right now. I believe many of us lost people we love in the past years, too, and the holidays make us feel that loss even more,” she pointed out.
While she also acknowledges that her family is not perfect, she credits them for giving her “a safe space” and staying on her side. Hers is a family which still included her “in everything” and treated her like family.
“And I say that last point because many will claim to be family to you but only those who will stay thru the differences, who will unconditionally love you, accept you, not change you, even when you don’t agree on everything, will prove to be true and lasting. Only time tells,” she said, as she cited 40 years of being a part of her family.
“For people who carried me to the car when I was drunk, people who cried when I was harsh, people who nursed me when I was abandoned by those I had offered my life and service to,” she recalled. “Maybe it had to take that much for me to know there is a gift in the family I am a part of.”
While for some, Christmas is saddled with sadness, Peralejo believes it is still okay.
“The most wonderful time of the year is not because everything is perfect but because there was an answer, a comfort, to our imperfect world,” she explained. JB
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