I just returned from a weekend with my family in Florida. My immediate family moved to central Fla when I was 10, and my grandmother moved down about five years ago. My dad is in NC, and everyone else is in NJ. My mom's heart breaks every time she thinks of not spending her golden years with her sister and brother. Her concept of family is that chosen family is very very close, but the given and chosen families she has are all so far away. She misses everyone all the time. She and I and my brother went to a farmers market on Saturday morning, which was a very rare nice outing for the three of us. She was in heaven. My family, though, is mostly made up of people I'm not related to. I have a special bond with my cousins, that even though we didn't really grow up together, we love and respect each other a lot and we spend time together when we can. This weekend, our neighbors from across the street, their kids, our family friends from mom's work, and our family friends from Germany (former foreign exchange student who's now 40) all came for dinner. There were 17 adults and four babies, the oldest being my three-year-old nephew. Babies got passed from one person to another, whoever had a free arm taking one, passing them on as they got tired or needed food/water/potty. At one point, my mom was holding almost-one-year-old Suhana and my nephew accidentally ran smack into a sliding glass door that he hadn't realized was closed. My leaned down to get Austin, I scooped Suhana out of her arms, Suhana's mom went to feed her other kid who was screaming, and 20 minutes later everything was calm and babies were in different arms. That's my family. Some of them are people I was given, but most are people we chose and who chose us.
E was not with me, which felt less abnormal than I had expected. We didn't actually talk much, either, because I was so busy. Only once did I call for an escape from something offensive, which I think is an all-time low. Last week, E and I filled out our household census, which is probably the most official "yes, we're together" thing we've done yet. He's on my health insurance at work, but we've each had other partners with whom we did that. This was the first time we were counted as a unit for any legal reason. The thing is, we aren't being counted as who we are. I get that the census doesn't account for sexual orientation, and that's whatever. They figure out same-sex partners by the combination of people listed that they are the same sex and listing their relationship to each other as "unmarried partner." We aren't a same-sex couple, but we are unmarried partners who do not have the option to marry. If we wanted to be counted as "couple who cannot legally marry," he would have to list himself as female, which did not feel ok. I haven't seen mention of this issue anywhere in LGBT or queer writeups about the census.
In two weeks, I will be doing Easter dinner for myself. I'm looking forward to cooking a big meal, but I don't know quite how to do it. The fact that it's Easter will take the wind out of E's sails, but it's important to me, so I'm doing it and he's ok with that. More planning to come, I'm sure.
There are some things I want to say about my relationship to my body and my family's relationship to my body, but they aren't ready yet. I will be back when the elves get back in shape.
