crazy is as crazy says

I won't get on my soapbox and brag about how ecstatic I am over recent political happenings. Past experience has taught me to write about what I know--coincidentally that's fairly limited to boys, recreational substances, and the nonprofit sector--and the world of politics is entirely too volatile, complex, and completely ridiculous for me to risk calling myself knowledgeable whatsoever.

Now onto something I do know about--boys and dysfunctional families. As far as my extended family is concerned, I'm quickly approaching prime age for marriage. My opinion on this matter is as yet unclear, as spending twenty-one years in South Louisiana, combined with being the kind of girl who repeatedly seems to find herself in long term relationships, has a tendency to make one eager to marry fairly young (which in Louisiana, would not be young at all, but perhaps in the rest of the country, might be a little premature.) However, being the liberal-minded, educated young woman that I am, I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I'm not entirely opposed to the idea of getting married in the moderately near future.

There, it's out there, for the entire internet to see, even all you yankees. Please don't think I'm a redneck.

I'm just a little bit terrified of the upcoming holiday season, because it means Nick meeting my extended family, and that makes me nervous. I would say about 75% of my family members will either completely ignore him, scare the shit out of him, or annoy him so much that he moves to sit with the ones who won't talk to him. They're an interesting bunch, without much respect or use for social delicacies. I'm positive somebody is going to ask us if we plan on getting married, which will be entirely awkward not because the idea makes me uncomfortable, but because I'm not sure whether I'm ready to take the plunge of telling aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents. Because I've thought in the past that the answer to that question was most certainly yes. There were plans and talks that were not at all considered abnormal or premature by my family--we'd been together for three years. And there were pointed questions when things got bad and I wasn't ready to admit it--when they started to notice that he never came around anymore.

Telling my family that I think I want to marry this guy is as good as him putting a ring on my finger, because from here on out they'll be watching, waiting, making little notes.

I'm starting to realize that I sound as crazy as they do, so I'll stop there. As good as I've gotten to be at understanding why people think and act the way that they do, I don't understand my family or my reaction to them, and my blog is most certainly not the place to explore latent issues. Perhaps I should have stuck to politics.

posted by Just Call Me Fabulous @ 11:18 AM