A Family Affair
So, as it turns out, I was wrong about everything.
I did weigh in at 180.25 pounds on Saturday morning, bringing my total weight loss to 70.75 pounds, just a slither away from the pre-tennis injury weight of 180.0, and 28% off my original body weight. I figure I can get my size 8s to Stage 2 by the end of this week, when I’m finished with my period.
Yes, that’s right: I got my period while vacationing at Howard’s parents in Florida. Yippee!! It’s as if my body knew that I’d be traveling on a mission to impress the parents of my One True Love, and so decided to dump my emotional stability at Midway airport just prior to departure.
Howard's parents: the people to whom he looks for counsel and advice, the pair who are held as the example for happy marriages and lifelong love and Family, capital “F” required, these people are his family, and home is wherever they are. Their life as Floridians is relatively short, but they’ve set up a house filled with half a century of history and family, so even though Howard has never stayed in this house for more than a few days, and even though he’s not lived with his parents for over 20 years, this is home for him. Thinking about it now, it’s a wonder I didn’t just explode into a zillion pieces when the trip got mentioned back in the fall. Whose whacked idea was this? Oh yeah; it was mine. Well, all right then. If my man wants to go home in December, then I’m going to go with him. Just excuse me a moment while I curl up in the fetal position. In a minute or two, you can just stuff me into the overhead bin.
In fairness to my own nausea, Howard laid out his own expectations around this trip: he wanted to come home as an adult with his family in tow (DS and me). He wanted to show us off, not in a nyah-nyah way, but the way a son brings home anything he’s proud of. Only instead of a spectacular career or a fabulous degree, this time it’s me, That Girl From College, who, while far removed from that 80s girl, is still me, only with gray hair and a child in tow.
I’d talked to Howard about my concerns, and my fears, and that prickle along the short hairs of my neck that happened every time I thought about our trip. He reassured me, insisting that his parents were excited to see me, even more excited to see DS, and had planned the whole of our trip to be inviting and welcoming. I don’t know, I warned Howard. You know how twisted up I get around other people. And besides, I would be neither at home nor with family. “Yes, you are,” he told me. “Or at least, you will be. You’ll see.”
These words, home and family, conjure all form of conflict inside me. They are elusive as deer, in that I can see them sometimes, but I can never get close, and I can never touch them. They are as dangerous as drugs, because I want them so badly that I’ve swallowed the generics, and sometimes even the street-cut variety, just to experience some whispered shadow of that rush. I wrote books about homes, and about families. The emotions and the actions flooded the pages, but the faces remained as blank as the walls in their ‘homes’. I didn’t paint my characters, because I couldn’t see them. Who had family? Where was home?
I’d heard once that family is something one creates-and that those called family are not necessarily those related to you. I believed that, and I looked for it. I looked and I hoped, and I dug like a pig for those truffles, but all I got was a snoot full of dirt and a couple of acorns. Eventually, ‘family’ became one of those words that belonged in other people’s lives-it was something that might exist, but not in my world. I've chosen people along the way who I thought qualified as family. I made the same mistake over and over, choosing people who needed me, and who disappeared once I solved their need (usually financial). Over the years, I've grafted and chainsawed so many limbs on and off my family tree that it looks pretty much like that nasty 'evergreen' from A Charlie Brown Christmas without the lone shiny bulb that, while dragging the whole scraggy thing down, at least makes it festive.
Then Howard came back into my life. We created a haven for ourselves here in Chicago, and, as much as I can face my fears to build a family and a home with him, we have succeeded. My hopes, still grandiose beyond anything a reasonable person should experience, hover over our shared dinners and our intimate chats, and, when I’m feeling particularly insane, our plans to visit Family at their Home. Yes, it was my idea that we visit Howard’s parents in Florida, and yes, it was with a heart full of hope and expectation. Clearly, this was doomed to failure.
Does everyone remember that I was wrong about everything?
I’ll spare the details, since these are private citizens who appear not to share my desire to blow personal baggage chunks all over their readers. I’m still in the middle of it, but despite the nerves, and my hormones, and a couple of hiccups that have been entirely my fault and not at all funny (though I’m hoping they will be, someday), I’ve discovered something important. It’s not the pursuit of the perfect visit that makes the trip right, and it’s not the rightness of the journey that makes the trip perfect. What does make it right, and perfect, is the people. Or rather, these people.
It wasn’t just Howard who held up his folks as the Primer on Parenting and the Manual for Happiness at Home. It was me, too. From my desire to wear a round-cut diamond with tapered baguettes on the side to kissing the same Marvelous Man every day for the rest of my life, these people have formed my conception of happiness, and of family, and of home. I chose them once, long ago, when I could not have known the prized decision I had made, and at a time in my life when I could not have been chosen, because I was not choose-able. I kept them all these years as a beacon of hope for my own tattered dreams of family and lifelong love. Whenever another love affair dissolved into the 'what were you thinking?' stage, I would remember Howard's parents, and I would know that love did exist, and that if I looked hard enough, I would find it.
During one of the moments this week when I unclenched long enough to spew my progesterone-depleted tears all over the lanai, Howard pointed out to me that I should stop worrying. I come from them, he reminded me. They made a great son because they are great people. As usual, when it comes to things like this, Howard was right. He is a great son, and they are great, great people.
I think at last I understand that Family is not some ideal, and it’s not some cerebral, theoretical thing. It’s a human-encrusted experience, complete in and of itself. Being a family is being a family. You can’t be one if you aren’t one. And you can’t be home until you’re home. But you can be as soon as you decide it.
So here I am in Florida, surrounded by my family, and home at last.
Guess I wasn’t wrong about everything.
A the R(ighted)
I did weigh in at 180.25 pounds on Saturday morning, bringing my total weight loss to 70.75 pounds, just a slither away from the pre-tennis injury weight of 180.0, and 28% off my original body weight. I figure I can get my size 8s to Stage 2 by the end of this week, when I’m finished with my period.
Yes, that’s right: I got my period while vacationing at Howard’s parents in Florida. Yippee!! It’s as if my body knew that I’d be traveling on a mission to impress the parents of my One True Love, and so decided to dump my emotional stability at Midway airport just prior to departure.
Howard's parents: the people to whom he looks for counsel and advice, the pair who are held as the example for happy marriages and lifelong love and Family, capital “F” required, these people are his family, and home is wherever they are. Their life as Floridians is relatively short, but they’ve set up a house filled with half a century of history and family, so even though Howard has never stayed in this house for more than a few days, and even though he’s not lived with his parents for over 20 years, this is home for him. Thinking about it now, it’s a wonder I didn’t just explode into a zillion pieces when the trip got mentioned back in the fall. Whose whacked idea was this? Oh yeah; it was mine. Well, all right then. If my man wants to go home in December, then I’m going to go with him. Just excuse me a moment while I curl up in the fetal position. In a minute or two, you can just stuff me into the overhead bin.
In fairness to my own nausea, Howard laid out his own expectations around this trip: he wanted to come home as an adult with his family in tow (DS and me). He wanted to show us off, not in a nyah-nyah way, but the way a son brings home anything he’s proud of. Only instead of a spectacular career or a fabulous degree, this time it’s me, That Girl From College, who, while far removed from that 80s girl, is still me, only with gray hair and a child in tow.
I’d talked to Howard about my concerns, and my fears, and that prickle along the short hairs of my neck that happened every time I thought about our trip. He reassured me, insisting that his parents were excited to see me, even more excited to see DS, and had planned the whole of our trip to be inviting and welcoming. I don’t know, I warned Howard. You know how twisted up I get around other people. And besides, I would be neither at home nor with family. “Yes, you are,” he told me. “Or at least, you will be. You’ll see.”
These words, home and family, conjure all form of conflict inside me. They are elusive as deer, in that I can see them sometimes, but I can never get close, and I can never touch them. They are as dangerous as drugs, because I want them so badly that I’ve swallowed the generics, and sometimes even the street-cut variety, just to experience some whispered shadow of that rush. I wrote books about homes, and about families. The emotions and the actions flooded the pages, but the faces remained as blank as the walls in their ‘homes’. I didn’t paint my characters, because I couldn’t see them. Who had family? Where was home?
I’d heard once that family is something one creates-and that those called family are not necessarily those related to you. I believed that, and I looked for it. I looked and I hoped, and I dug like a pig for those truffles, but all I got was a snoot full of dirt and a couple of acorns. Eventually, ‘family’ became one of those words that belonged in other people’s lives-it was something that might exist, but not in my world. I've chosen people along the way who I thought qualified as family. I made the same mistake over and over, choosing people who needed me, and who disappeared once I solved their need (usually financial). Over the years, I've grafted and chainsawed so many limbs on and off my family tree that it looks pretty much like that nasty 'evergreen' from A Charlie Brown Christmas without the lone shiny bulb that, while dragging the whole scraggy thing down, at least makes it festive.
Then Howard came back into my life. We created a haven for ourselves here in Chicago, and, as much as I can face my fears to build a family and a home with him, we have succeeded. My hopes, still grandiose beyond anything a reasonable person should experience, hover over our shared dinners and our intimate chats, and, when I’m feeling particularly insane, our plans to visit Family at their Home. Yes, it was my idea that we visit Howard’s parents in Florida, and yes, it was with a heart full of hope and expectation. Clearly, this was doomed to failure.
Does everyone remember that I was wrong about everything?
I’ll spare the details, since these are private citizens who appear not to share my desire to blow personal baggage chunks all over their readers. I’m still in the middle of it, but despite the nerves, and my hormones, and a couple of hiccups that have been entirely my fault and not at all funny (though I’m hoping they will be, someday), I’ve discovered something important. It’s not the pursuit of the perfect visit that makes the trip right, and it’s not the rightness of the journey that makes the trip perfect. What does make it right, and perfect, is the people. Or rather, these people.
It wasn’t just Howard who held up his folks as the Primer on Parenting and the Manual for Happiness at Home. It was me, too. From my desire to wear a round-cut diamond with tapered baguettes on the side to kissing the same Marvelous Man every day for the rest of my life, these people have formed my conception of happiness, and of family, and of home. I chose them once, long ago, when I could not have known the prized decision I had made, and at a time in my life when I could not have been chosen, because I was not choose-able. I kept them all these years as a beacon of hope for my own tattered dreams of family and lifelong love. Whenever another love affair dissolved into the 'what were you thinking?' stage, I would remember Howard's parents, and I would know that love did exist, and that if I looked hard enough, I would find it.
During one of the moments this week when I unclenched long enough to spew my progesterone-depleted tears all over the lanai, Howard pointed out to me that I should stop worrying. I come from them, he reminded me. They made a great son because they are great people. As usual, when it comes to things like this, Howard was right. He is a great son, and they are great, great people.
I think at last I understand that Family is not some ideal, and it’s not some cerebral, theoretical thing. It’s a human-encrusted experience, complete in and of itself. Being a family is being a family. You can’t be one if you aren’t one. And you can’t be home until you’re home. But you can be as soon as you decide it.
So here I am in Florida, surrounded by my family, and home at last.
Guess I wasn’t wrong about everything.
A the R(ighted)
posted by Former Fat Girl Gone Skinny | 8:14 PM
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