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| Camping circa 1993 (I'm in the dalmatian shirt) |
With three sisters and two incredible parents that have been married for 35 years, my family is
extremely close. We tell each other everything and know each other so well... or so we say. As the Holidays are here and with a family of six, all three sisters are married and with five nieces and nephews, things get busy. And just as I believe that I am a good communicator and that I try very hard to with my family, relationships go both ways. I may be open and honest, but if they are not, then trying to keep a relationship up is near impossible.
As I was planning on going down to San Antonio to meet my girlfriends family after Christmas, we both had it all planned out to the hour! This is one of the many reasons why I adore E as much as I do is our love for planning :-) Work on Friday, stay at my flat and take care of Dan (my lazy three year old cat), head down to my Folks' house Christmas Eve morning, be there by 9am, hang with the family and the sisters, make pizzelles, have our family Christmas bunco party that night, than stay the night there with the family on a pallet in the living room, wake up on Christmas morning around 7am, have homemade cinnamon rolls with the family, do the grand-kids presents by 9 am, adults stockings (we don't do presents for the sisters and I anymore... adulthood is tough guys.) than lounge around for a few hours, maybe watch a Christmas movie and than by 13:00, everyone is headed out to their in-laws. See, I told you, to the T. This was the game plan that I had confirmed or so I thought, with the sisters as well as my Mom. So... as you usually do when you are in a serious relationship, I planned out what I was going to be doing after the family Christmas with E. I told her that I would leave my folks' house no later than 14:00, head to San Antonio (about four hours away) and meet her and her family there. Stay the night there and then we would drive back together on the 26th.
Well, here is when that talent that I thought I had, failed me. First off, you have to see the importance of me choosing to spend time with someone outside of my family over a Holiday. In my near 30 years of existence, I have never done that. I have never had someone so important and special in my life that I was someone that my Mother had to check in with over the holidays to see if I was busy. Until now. Interestingly enough, most of my family do not acknowledge that the relationship that I am in with my girlfriend is a 'real' relationship so... there's always that situation, but I guess because I'm not married that my life, my plans are 'flexible'. This is not something that has happened since I have come out, but is just the way things have always been since I've entered adulthood.
I have always seen my Mother as Mrs. Bennet from Pride and Prejudice. Her one goal in life, to get her daughters married off to good, preferably wealthy, men as soon as possible. Now, as I have three sisters, three incredible sisters all of whom did their share of dating in high school and out of it, we had our share of eligible bachelors over to our home for Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas Dinner, family birthdays etc. My Mother would plan around when that sisters boyfriend (because if he was spending a holiday with us, then it was a big deal and marriage was always encouraged!) could join us. I vividly remember a few years ago when my youngest sister (probably around 20 at the time) wanted to bring her boyfriend at the time over for Christmas dinner. I remember it, because we had originally planned to have an early dinner around 16:00 and ended up moving it all the way to 13:00 so he could be there to have dinner with us and would then have time for both of them to go over to his families house. Nothing made my Mother more happy than to accommodate their schedule.
Now, as I am 28 (way too old to still be single in Mrs Bennet's, uh I mean my Mother's book) and in a serious relationship, I know, without a doubt that if the person that I were currently dating were a man, that my Mother would bend over backwards to make sure that we would both be welcome in the house and she would want to know everything about him and his family and if we had talked about marriage etc. As it is, it is not a man that I am dating and just from that one detail, the entire rhythm and flow of what I know so well about the way my family works, is thrown off-kilter. What I thought I knew so well, of how it would be once I fell in love, is totally unknown.
When I told my sisters a few days ago that I was going down to San Antonio to meet E's family after we finished with our family Christmas on Christmas Day, they all shared mixed feelings of excitement, curiosity and I guess encouragement. None of them mentioned that my Mother had a full Christmas day dinner planned for that afternoon. When I told my Mom that I was going to be leaving around 13/14:00 to go to San Antonio, she got super upset and said that I would miss Christmas dinner. I was totally thrown off! Christmas dinner? When was this planned!? I looked back through my texts and thought of all the conversations that I had had with my sisters and my Mother and no one ever mentioned that we were doing dinner. I asked my Mom when this had been planned because I certainly would have made sure that I was there for Christmas dinner. She said that she had told all the sisters and that they knew... but what about me!? Why didn't you tell me!? She knows that I am dating, which for me is a very big deal, so why did she not think at all to inform me about all the family plans. She looked back in her texts and informed me that she guess she didn't let me know and the last thing she told me was that we were wearing pajamas Christmas morning... but nothing at all about Christmas dinner.
Now, don't you reader start thinking 'Well, of course you'd have dinner on Christmas dummy." because in my family, with how extensive it is and the amount of family and in-laws involved, it changes every year. Last year all my sisters left around 11/12 to go to their in-laws on Christmas morning, my Dad ended up going to the barn and working and my Mom went down in her room, closing the door she read or took a nap (this is a very frequent thing with my Mother) so... I sat there, alone at my parents house on Christmas last year. I ended up leaving, stopping by Walgreens to grab a six pack, went to my flat and watched the extended version of the Lord of the Rings trilogy alone. It was not the best Christmas.
This year, anger filled me when after I had already made plans, that my family was then throwing blame around on me for choosing to not be with them on the biggest day of the year. I know, that if E were a man, that there would have been discussions about maybe moving the family dinner up a few hours, about even inviting him to come over and join the family for dinner, there would have been some discussion. As I sat and cried at my desk, hating my family and hating how much I loved them and hating how much of a play and pull they have over my life and how I wanted so bad to not be there, but I knew that I wanted to be there more than anything, they were my family and I loved them dearly... I spoke to E about San Antonio. E reacted and answered as the humble, graceful, understanding and incredible woman that she is. "There is nothing that we cannot figure out." "We will make our own Christmas." She helped me calm down, told me to take a deep breath, go for a walk, talk to my older sister and buy a Dr Pepper (my de-stress drink). To have someone who understands me that much... I tell you readers... it's pretty incredible.
There's no real answer to what the balance should be with my family and me being Queer. There are times when I give them distance, there are times when I attend every family event. There are times when I try to talk and ask them questions about their lives, there are times when I don't talk for months. I so wish that there could be a book that was customized to my own coming out story. A book that in bullet points told me how to act and talk to my family. 'At the two month mark discuss this. At the one year mark answer this...' but, that's not the way life works.
Me openly being in a relationship with a woman (E most certainly is not the first, but she is the first that I have been open with about to my family) is still new and scary to my family, but I have found my courage and I know who I am. I will not deny that I am a lesbian any longer should I be asked. If someone asked if I am dating anyone, I will tell them happily and proudly that I am blessed beyond anything to be dating an incredible woman named E. My family knows that I am with her. They know that we went to Seattle together. They know that I will spend New Years with her. Whether for better or worse, I am spending Christmas with my family and not with E. But I know that I will call her, facetime her, constantly text her and are even planning on wearing her pajamas in our family pajama Christmas picture (hehe, don't tell anyone!). And come the 26th and the 27th, we will be together in her house, which perhaps one day will be our home, spending Christmas together in each others arms.
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