onlysweetpea
Bluelighter
Selfish
"So I was sitting around with all the cousins and I told them that you're seeing someone who's 6'5"," my sister said.
I was laying prone in bed in my Nyquil like coma Saturday afternoon. I was still on a 2 minute delay. Nothing she was saying was registering till it was too late for me to protest.
I moaned in reply.
"They had no idea how tall that was in relation to all of us," she continued. "We've never been exposed to someone practically a foot and a half beyond our own kind."
I don't quite remember when it hit me that she mentioned she told the family I was seeing someone. I still don't quite know what it meant that his height was so foreign to us little folk. My mind wandered to picturing our family, like Liliputians in our own little smurf village complete with high pitched chipmunk voices and living in psychadelic mushroom houses. There are definitely enough of us in the clan to count as a tribe. And the way my sister went on about The Boy, I pictured him landing in our little family smurf land like Gargamel, like Gulliver, like Big White Man with Big Heavy Ax Come To Teach Small Human How To Be Civilized.
Two minute delay. Cold Meds like psychadelic tranquilizers and I've managed to turn a conversation with my sister about dating into the politics of white man invading native territory.
Great.
I shook my head out of my reverie. She had started to go on about how her boyfriend is coming to Christmas. And then she mentioned another cousin and her boyfriend. And then I felt myself wake up a bit.
Oh my god.
She went on about plans to go to New York while we were home.
Oh my god.
She mentioned she was done holiday shopping and listed what she got our parents.
She told the family I had a boyfriend.
T-minus 10 seconds and counting. Two minute delay had come into fruition and I was aware and awake and sweating in bed. I kicked the covers off of me. I couldn't breathe under them. I also couldn't breathe out of my left nostril. I sat up and opened the window wide to let in a gust of cold air. It hit me in the face and temporarily relieved my pending fever.
In an email to my cousin yesterday, I went on about how I feel like this thing between The Boy and I is so much mine and so personal and so quiet...that I don't want to share it with them. Not with my family. Sure, with all of you guys, but not with my family.
My family is littered with loud and boisterous women. They laugh, they cook, they eat, they shop and they do all of it with complete abandon, sometimes so much so, they get into trouble. The diabetics run rampant, the credit cards smoke from overuse, the blood pressure rises. All that good stuff that comes from being a woman who likes to take up a lot of space and let everyone know they're doing it.
I can see where I get that half of me from. While I love them and while I know they mean well, they're old school. They look at me and their eyes bear into mine and this voice, their voice, sounding much like Darth Vader's, rings through my brain saying:
"Get married already. Have a fucking baby."
You know. This comes with the territory when you're dealing with women who married at 19 and, to my knowledge, have never looked back.
A part of me thinks they want this just to have a reason to get together to create a big mess of a party. Someone wants to order lechon. Someone wants to spend days roasting a pig on a spit. Someone wants to spend copious amounts of money on food and renting out the town hall and then bitch about the bill. Someone wants more pictures on their fridge. Someone wants to relive motherhood and take my baby on as their own. Someone wants to clean and scrub and prepare for 300 people invading our home, eating everything we own and leaving at 2 AM to have the whole thing happen again for the actual wedding, the baby shower, the first birthday celebrations.
Sometimes I feel, like they live for these moments because, well, it's what they know best. It's always about annoucning something big and inviting the whole world into the fracas and making a big deal.
This is why I never tell my family about dating and who I'm with. I could tell them I met someone last week and they'd already be arguing about what church parish we'll be getting married in.
The Boy doesn't have a big family. They're not like mine. We're like the Borg. We assimilate people.
And plus, The Boy and I aren't like my sister and her boyfriend or anyone else and their so-and-so. The Boy isn't my boyfriend.
He's...The Boy.
And we're keeping it that way until further notice.
And I've got a week and a half until I have to walk off of a plane in Philadelphia, into the harsh winter that is the East Coast and try to cover up the intimate lowkey comfort of The Boy.
I flashbacked last night, curled up in bed at an early hour due to my still raging illness, and like a dream, felt the warmth of him lingering near me, behind me, his arm under my side, reaching around to hold my hand as we fall asleep, his mouth pressed to the back of my neck, right above my tattoo, like we had fallen asleep numerous times in the past two months.
This is mine.
I don't want to share it with them.
"So I was sitting around with all the cousins and I told them that you're seeing someone who's 6'5"," my sister said.
I was laying prone in bed in my Nyquil like coma Saturday afternoon. I was still on a 2 minute delay. Nothing she was saying was registering till it was too late for me to protest.
I moaned in reply.
"They had no idea how tall that was in relation to all of us," she continued. "We've never been exposed to someone practically a foot and a half beyond our own kind."
I don't quite remember when it hit me that she mentioned she told the family I was seeing someone. I still don't quite know what it meant that his height was so foreign to us little folk. My mind wandered to picturing our family, like Liliputians in our own little smurf village complete with high pitched chipmunk voices and living in psychadelic mushroom houses. There are definitely enough of us in the clan to count as a tribe. And the way my sister went on about The Boy, I pictured him landing in our little family smurf land like Gargamel, like Gulliver, like Big White Man with Big Heavy Ax Come To Teach Small Human How To Be Civilized.
Two minute delay. Cold Meds like psychadelic tranquilizers and I've managed to turn a conversation with my sister about dating into the politics of white man invading native territory.
Great.
I shook my head out of my reverie. She had started to go on about how her boyfriend is coming to Christmas. And then she mentioned another cousin and her boyfriend. And then I felt myself wake up a bit.
Oh my god.
She went on about plans to go to New York while we were home.
Oh my god.
She mentioned she was done holiday shopping and listed what she got our parents.
She told the family I had a boyfriend.
T-minus 10 seconds and counting. Two minute delay had come into fruition and I was aware and awake and sweating in bed. I kicked the covers off of me. I couldn't breathe under them. I also couldn't breathe out of my left nostril. I sat up and opened the window wide to let in a gust of cold air. It hit me in the face and temporarily relieved my pending fever.
In an email to my cousin yesterday, I went on about how I feel like this thing between The Boy and I is so much mine and so personal and so quiet...that I don't want to share it with them. Not with my family. Sure, with all of you guys, but not with my family.
My family is littered with loud and boisterous women. They laugh, they cook, they eat, they shop and they do all of it with complete abandon, sometimes so much so, they get into trouble. The diabetics run rampant, the credit cards smoke from overuse, the blood pressure rises. All that good stuff that comes from being a woman who likes to take up a lot of space and let everyone know they're doing it.
I can see where I get that half of me from. While I love them and while I know they mean well, they're old school. They look at me and their eyes bear into mine and this voice, their voice, sounding much like Darth Vader's, rings through my brain saying:
"Get married already. Have a fucking baby."
You know. This comes with the territory when you're dealing with women who married at 19 and, to my knowledge, have never looked back.
A part of me thinks they want this just to have a reason to get together to create a big mess of a party. Someone wants to order lechon. Someone wants to spend days roasting a pig on a spit. Someone wants to spend copious amounts of money on food and renting out the town hall and then bitch about the bill. Someone wants more pictures on their fridge. Someone wants to relive motherhood and take my baby on as their own. Someone wants to clean and scrub and prepare for 300 people invading our home, eating everything we own and leaving at 2 AM to have the whole thing happen again for the actual wedding, the baby shower, the first birthday celebrations.
Sometimes I feel, like they live for these moments because, well, it's what they know best. It's always about annoucning something big and inviting the whole world into the fracas and making a big deal.
This is why I never tell my family about dating and who I'm with. I could tell them I met someone last week and they'd already be arguing about what church parish we'll be getting married in.
The Boy doesn't have a big family. They're not like mine. We're like the Borg. We assimilate people.
And plus, The Boy and I aren't like my sister and her boyfriend or anyone else and their so-and-so. The Boy isn't my boyfriend.
He's...The Boy.
And we're keeping it that way until further notice.
And I've got a week and a half until I have to walk off of a plane in Philadelphia, into the harsh winter that is the East Coast and try to cover up the intimate lowkey comfort of The Boy.
I flashbacked last night, curled up in bed at an early hour due to my still raging illness, and like a dream, felt the warmth of him lingering near me, behind me, his arm under my side, reaching around to hold my hand as we fall asleep, his mouth pressed to the back of my neck, right above my tattoo, like we had fallen asleep numerous times in the past two months.
This is mine.
I don't want to share it with them.
