Not the family you are born into

My kid is asleep on the couch right now.

She is not my kid really. She is not my husbands kid either. Hell she is not even a kid anymore, she is half way to 21 already. In reality she is just a friend. Well I think saying she is 'just' a friend doesn't properly define our relationship either.

We met her through faire five years ago. She had just made it on cast and was just about to turn 16. Yea, she was 16 going on 30. I am not sure anyone ever really looked at her as a kid. She was always really mature, even when she was around the other under 18 year olds, she just seemed older.

Somewhere along the way we started seeing more and more of her. She joined our Tuesday night gaming group, she became our pet/house sitter, she started just showing up in the middle of the day when we were not home, she even spends her holidays with us.

We offered her our spare bedroom a couple of years ago because she was here so often. While she now has a bag full of clothes in there, and the bathroom is fully stocked with her toiletries she still insists on sleeping on the couch. She says it is just the right size for her and it is too comfortable to resist.

So she is really that friend who never really goes home.

Only she is even more than that. We have had her tagging along since she was 16 years old, and we have seen her through a lot of things. She was raised Christian Scientist, and so I ended up being the one to take her to a doctor for the first time. When she got the flu so bad she could barely get up I left work to go get her a thermometer and medicine. I know when she is upset that she likes to have her hair played with. I have held her when she cried. I helped her learn French (well ok I tried to help her but the French thing went badly).

There are a lot of times when I really do feel a bit like she is our kid.
We joke all the time that we adopted her. I have told my coworkers she is my daughter, I even told the ER doctors she was my kid when she took me to get my finger bandaged after I sliced the tip off (It was a thing). I don't really even think about it anymore when I say it. I just do.

A few weeks ago we ha a party for one of our friends who was leaving for the Navy. My kid was there of course, but her actual parents came as well since they knew the guy who was leaving. At one point during the party her dad found me and pulled me aside to thank me for adopting his daughter. He said he was glad to know she always had someone there to take care of her and love her.
It made me all squishy inside.

So my kid is asleep on the couch right now.
All is right with the world.