T-day

[kitanzi]

Happy Thanksgiving Day, Turkey Day, or simply Thursday as appropriate to everyone. Mine was delicious and delightful, since autographedcat and I went around noon to celebrate with telynor and household, plus friends I hadn't seen in far too long. There was much food shopping, much cooking, much eating, much playing with small children, and much of what I LIKE about holidays as opposed to stress and irritation and a feeling of a wasted day. I really enjoyed it, though we left earlyish because we were both tired, especially the driver. It was a wonderful thing to be able to spend that holiday with people who are family, and it's an even more wonderful thing to be able to say that!

Friday morning was lots of housecleaning for me while ACat dragged himself off to deal with a work crisis, and preparing for my mother to show up. My mother is by far the best part of my family, but I still go into insecure fits of fretting any time she visits. (Believe me, you don't want to know what I do when my dad visits.) She was also meeting ACat for the first time, which didn't help the fretting. She showed up in the early afternoon with no trouble, and we all had a very nice, low pressure sort of weekend which autographedcat detailed quite well. He and mom definitely hit it off, though I don't think she actually believes he's the age he is, since he kept knowing all sorts of cultural references she didn't expect, plus he kisses hands. *G* It was very cute, and a relief to me, though I wasn't THAT worried.

She and I also had, in bits and pieces, the inevitable conversation about why I broke up with my ex of 8 years earlier this year, and how ACat and I wound up together, and so on. My immediate family (parents and brother, and I think my stepmother) all know that I'm poly and bi - I still can't decide if it was a kindness or pushing my luck to dump both facts on them at once a few years back - but the overall reaction seemed to me to be "I don't want to know about it." Mom did send my girlfriend a christmas gift when she sent them for me and F that year, which was lovely and unsolicited, but still seemed to suffer from terminal awkwardness in any conversation.(In fairness, my brother just thought it was kinda weird but interesting, and said so bluntly. He also gave me advice on how to talk to my dad about it. I like my brother, he's the coolest Marine I know.)

Well, that was doable, and the topic was not brought up to any of them again until I was faced with explaining to them back this spring just WHY F and I broke up, and where I was moving to, and some circumstances. It was relevant, and it was mentioned - my father was very blank and noncommunicative, my mother asked if I needed to talk but was very uncomfortable. As a result, I touched on it in this weekend's conversation briefly and only as relevant, and left it at that. I was most amused and surprised when mom brought it up this morning shortly before leaving (and non-coincidentally when ACat was in the shower) and wanted to know exactly what polyamory was, and what it meant to me, and so on. We had a really good conversation about it, and she stressed that she'd just needed time to "wrap her mind around it". Not a problem... and to me, a very sweet and much appreciated thing. My family has never been close, by the most generous definition of the term, but it's such a nice thing to suddenly feel like I can stop self-censoring with my mom, at least.

It was a damned good Thanksgiving, and I feel like I've got an awful lot to be thankful for this time around.

Comments

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

Oh, that definetely sounds like a holiday to be thankful for. I'm glad you had such a good time!

--A.