mph.

[dragonlady7]

This is a little vignette of something that just made me sad, and I feel like maybe writing about it will make me feel better.



Yesterday we went over to Dave's aunt Jean's house to put together the memory board for Gram's funeral. Jean spends a bit of time in South Carolina, and had just been there. They were talking about that for a little while, and I realized that it's very close to Savannah, where my sister (Captain!) Katy lives with her husband (Captain and Captain Smith!). So when the talk died down I mentioned where my sister lives, where she just bought a house with her husband, and how they're both posted at Ft. Stewart with the III Infantry Div. and are both being deployed to Iraq in January. I mentioned that it is sort of sad for them-- they decided to go ahead and live their lives even though they were going away, so they bought a house, and after much deliberation, got a puppy (Scout, a female springer spaniel baby sweetie pie). Even though they were going away for a year, Katy had been wanting a dog for years and years, and so Adam made arrangements for the dog to be taken care of while they were away, and got her the puppy as a surprise housewarming gift, and she was so excited and it made her so happy.

"That's totally irresponsible," Dave's sister, Krista, said scornfully. "Why would you get a dog when you know you're leaving and can't give it a good home?"


That made me sad. I don't think I can make her believe that I and my entire family aren't twits. She's just the sort of person that really intimidates me. I wish I were better at dealing with that sort of thing.

Comments

[mother2012.livejournal.com]

Sometimes you just have to agree to disagree.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

It's not so much disagreement on particular issues, as an incompatibility in personality. To me, that was a completely inappropriate and cold-hearted thing to say. To Dave's mom's side of the family, it was right in line with their general level of sweet-and-kind-ness. They don't spare feelings and they don't soften anything.

Li'l ol' slow-witted not-so-sharp me spends a lot of time cringing among them.

[mother2012.livejournal.com]

How unfortunate. My in-laws are like that - just totally imcompatible with my personality.

At first I used the policy of 'you can't get to know someone unless you spend time with them', so I did that for several years. I got to the point of at least respecting most of them, but they never did either like or respect me. Like someone else commented, they prefer the daughters-in-law to just smile and not say much.

I finally refused to go there for holidays anymore, because what's the point? Told my husband he could go if he wanted, I'd rather give up his company than put up with theirs. Interestingly, he hasn't ever done that - go alone, that is.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

They're a lot of fun to observe, and they really are good people. They're witty, clever, and have greatly amusing inside jokes. I love their little family traditions and their funny specialized terms for family moments and their ritualized dealings with certain situations.

But I am very much on the outside looking in. I am an eccentric person, very odd, very clumsy, quite awkward. My own family is long used to this, and I have become accustomed to bending down corners of my weirdness to fit myself pretty well into other groupings with little friction.

But I have not been able to adapt to that side of Dave's family. They're simply very close-knit to one another, and a bit prickly on the outside. I feel intrusive there, and when I try to fit myself into whatever spaces I see, I always seem to pick the wrong one and end up stepping on someone, metaphorically. So I get shoved, and wind up sitting in a corner feeling very awkward and uncertain.

I lived in his mother's house for several months this summer and I don't think I got one full night's sleep for worrying over something or another that i had done to give offense. It's tiring and makes me sad, because I like them but don't know how to make myself likable to them.

[spacellama.livejournal.com]

Captain and Captain Smith? Are you sure they aren't super-spies? (Or a punk band?)

They made arrangements for the pup to be happy and taken care of while they are away. That's about as responsible as it gets. A puppy isn't a kid: he won't grow up and need therapy for abandonment issues; he'll get huge and lick them silly when they get back.

So considering she said a completely twittish thing, there's no reason for you to be intimidated. Did you bust out laughing at her twittism?

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

No, and that's part of the problem. She does these things and I'm caught completely off-guard. It just never crossed my mind that anyone would say something so exceedingly cold and indicative of not having been paying any attention. I mean, if you weren't paying attention because you didn't care, why would you need to pass judgement at the end?
And she wasn't interested in my response anyway. I sort of blinked, and Aunt Jean introduced a new topic.


Sigh.

Dave's mom's whole side of the family is kind of like that-- very sharp, very cool, very not-compatible with my manner. I said I was writing a novel and his cousin burst out laughing and said "Oh great, just what the world needs" or something to that effect. They're just... they're not bad people, they're just entirely merciless, and in my case it's not born of fondness.
Dave's like that too, but he actually listens to me first so he doesn't usually wind up sucker-punching me with something I really hadn't expected. Also, with him I have conversations wherein he doesn't make me feel two inches tall.


I am feeling sad because I expect I'll be spending Christmas here this year, and I had such a quietly miserable time last year feeling that I had done precisely everything wrong.

[spacellama.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a very difficult group to navigate in. I'm usually deer-in-headlights around those kinds of people, so I end up smiling a lot and not saying very much. They seem to like that. I guess it makes them feel clever to reduce someone else to nodding silence. Bleh.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

I don't think that they particularly want to tear me down. I get the feeling that I disappoint a bit when I am reduced to nodding silence. But they are too different from what I'm used to for me to be able to keep up. And I'm too awkward to just be able to keep out of the way.

Mph, it's thoroughly saddening. I do so well with Dave, and am so thoroughly comfortable with him. But I can't magically become a better conversationalist.

[(Anonymous)]

I didn't know that my family makes you miserable. Why didn't you say something?

- Z

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

It's not misery on the whole, so much as consistent uneasiness, and I've told you about that. At least, I know I told you about the recurring nightmares I had all summer about your mom deciding she hated me.

I'm just sad, sweetie, that I can't get to a stage where I am comfortable. I enjoy your family gatherings but with that side of the family I mostly just have to nod and smile, and revert to my personality of about ten years ago when I was much more shy.

You were there. How would you have answered Krista's comment? I tried to, but she'd already dismissed me and moved on. I'm unused to that kind of total conversational inadequacy. So it makes me sad, is all. They're tremendous fun to observe, but I am a little frightened of them in the end.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

>Captain and Captain Smith


They're really not very punk, which is too bad.

I'm disappointed because Katy insisted that they be introduced at the wedding as Captain and Mrs. Smith.
Bah! She's a Captain too! He only outranks her by about two months' seniority, and she actually has a more important job. But she really likes being called Mrs.
However, Smith took her a while to get used to. Innumerable times, she was addressed thus: "Smith. Hey, Smith. Smith. ... Smith. Smith!" *comes over and taps her shoulder. "Smith!"
"Oh, that's me!"