Jun 23 2003
Meeting the in-laws
And so the time came, passed, and left impressions that I still cannot quite decipher. It was a strange feeling to meet the “in-laws” after so much time, especially when my relationship was shrouded in secrecy. When other adults are present they are generally in relation to me, where everything is open. Some of my family may know that we exist as this monosexual couple (and I suspect that they do not like it), but there is never an element of awkwardness.
On first greetings her hands were dirty with garden soil, mine sticky from summer icecream fun. She looked older than I had imagined and although previous hearings of her morning voice had led me to believe that she was an authoritarian, her clothes took me down an alternate path. Soft pastel blues and pale whites, garden flip flops with exposed feet. She smiled and I reciprocated (although ever-so conscious of the growing mark on my front tooth from a previous breakage), an awkward hello splurged from my lips, followed by a half-hearted hug that lacked intention. Banter was made, banal after-party conversation before we swiftly exited and made our way to solitary spaces.
It wasn’t so much that the whole experience was awkward, or uncomfortable, just extremely different and restrictive in my ways of personal expression. Never in my life have I felt so aware of my self-image. My presentation, look, bodily modifications and attitude. And although I made no real outward and noticable change to the way I acted, something inside was telling me to be someone different. To not be brown skinned. To not have stretched ears, to not be the product of a broken relationship. When I made comparisons to our home lives and visible upbringings, it was evident that we have come from different worlds. In my world we wear underwear on our heads whilst cooking dinner. We get drunk and cry together, before re-discovering happiness and stability. In his world they eat as a family and keep photo albums dating back years (I have no recollection of ever seeing a photo album in my house.) In his world happiness is fuelled by conventionalism - in ours, fluoexetine, amitriptyline, diazepam and dothiepen.
It wasn’t that I desired that lifestyle, or even disliked it — it just caused me to make fleeting observations of an alternative family structure that I have never been a part of. And sometimes, just sometimes, I had to wonder if it were all just a setup. If ignorance really is bliss, then maybe that is the key to their sucession (that is, until I came along.)
When questioned I felt that I wanted to justify my dysfunctional presence in their functional lives. I wanted to show that you can come from different paths, shine from a different facet, and still walk the same route. I wanted to show that we can all make a place for others in our lives, if only we would open our minds.