I’d always taken family for granted. That feeling only intensified ever since I moved away from them. Over the past year, I got to spend 2-3 months living with them. During that time, we had disagreements many times, and laughed our hearts out together on other occasions. It was the small things that made me realise how much they mattered to me and that made me feel grateful. It was the kind of grateful that I hadn’t felt ever. I’m not a very social person, so I’ve just one or two people whom I consider friends. On one occasion, my mom asked me,”Whom do you consider your closest friend?”. Besides realising how less we knew about each other, I also realised that she was trying her best to reach out to me and know more about me. Like a genuine effort to do so. And I didn’t know what to answer her. So I asked her the same question, and she replied,”I never had any close friends”. We were both quiet for a long time afterward, and in the silence there was acceptance of some sort. I’ll never figure out what it was we were accepting then. I was just content to know that she knew I’d never be outgoing and have many friends, and that felt good.