Talks with the Mirror

Chapter twotwo - marrying into a better family than your own

2021

The chapter I didn't really ever imagine I would be writing, yet don't feel surprised in having to write.

My girlfriend's family is a million times better than mine.

Disclaimer: I am talking about immediate family, the extended part does not apply here.

Imagine a family that has an online chat together to keep one another updated of whereabouts and changing plans. Now, add the fact that they also always gather at grandma's every Sunday morning to eat bread together and talk about the week. Then, add the part that they have their kids live with them completely for free while they are studying. Don't forget, they are honest with one another about everything under the sun and hold nothing under the table changing the mood at dinner.

This is just the fucking start.

They are amazing people who have received me so well. I have never been made to feel more part of a group as quickly as they made me feel a part of this family. I have them to thank for being as angry as I am now! See, before them, I knew my family was fucked, but now I think my family is completely off the rails. I cannot begin to explain the existential crisis it sent me into, knowing that this is what I am marrying into, while my girlfriend has a dysfunctional divorced couple with drinking issues to get used to. 

I feel lost almost all of the time trying to figure out how to exist around an environment where I don't have to tiptoe around people's moods. Where is the passive aggressiveness of the month? The silence on the table because no one has anything in common anymore? Where are the shouts to keep me up the night before my exam? Where is the normalcy I was used to?

I'm not a masochist, I don't want all of those negative feelings back. I just don't know how to exist in a world where the risk of an argument isn't always creeping around the corner. I'm still getting used to it, and frankly I have trust issues after all those years of experiencing the instability my parents taught me to expect from the world.

When we go over to visit my mom, I try to make the visits as short as I can because I am afraid that my girlfriend will finally figure out the fact that there is nothing that I can offer her expect trauma and scars. Some day she will finally realize that my baggage is way too heavy to share and that my ghosts won't ever abandon me. I think she deserves better. Of course I do. The first angel I meet and she happens to love me back. Only she has everything to offer, while all I can give her is me.

This is not going to stop me from making her my wife, but it will be an internal battle to face everyday until someday I become my true self. The one who isn't a reflection of her family but rather a new light to shine for my own kids. Some day I will be more than so and so's kid. I will be someone's mother and that will be enough to shatter any shadows that may want to dim my light.