Two thoughts

First, for yesterday.
I was thinking about Christmas yesterday, about going home, eating almond danish and turkey, teasing my sister and driving out to see the lights. I wasn't planning on changing anything this year - I would go home, Ethan to Florida, and we would meet up after the holiday. We've done it for years, so each of us can see our families, spend that time with tradition and history of it. We don't have our own tradition and so there is no real loss. But I am scared of that this year, frightened of being in my house again without him and it has nothing to do with our impending marriage but much more so with my sister's. It had always been the four of us (and then the others in the afternoon) - stockings, breakfast, presents, food, pie, a movie, bed. I didn't mind being away from him because I had my nucleus and the bonds were tight enough to hold together. But now that my sister has entered the land of the shmoopsies (it really is quite gag-worthy) time at home doesn't feel like home anymore. It has become full of my lack. A week at Christmas, another one at June - why I was so irritable, so ill-content, became clear in hindsight and the recognition does nothing to heal the problem.

Second, for today.
Ariel said it last night, as people often do - Well, you have a new family, now. I disagree. I think I will always disagree. If they mean the in-laws then there is no contest but what most often is referred to is the two of us, now and in the future. Depends on the speaker. Ethan as my family, me as his, us as ours - I don't buy it. Somehow in my upbringing became the entrenched idea that a family is something with children, with multiple generations or multiples of the same generation - and no, two people choosing to be with each other (of whatever generations) is not good enough. I feel strongly enough about this to bristle slightly when I hear the two of us referred to that way (yes, I realize how irrational and pointless that is) and I have an urge to call down my rhetorical lightning and teach the poor speaker a lesson but to no avail - in truth there is no point. I have never really thought about why the terminology bothers me so much, why the knee-jerk reaction is there but off the top of my head (likely influenced by all my recent journal reading) is the fact that most people do mean parents and children when they speak of families in the most general sense and I either resent or fear the implication that the two of us is not good enough or surely temporary - that our relationship, once legalized, is still not validated by society until there are little midget liebskis running around (certainly aren't many tall-genes in the ancestors). The past few weeks have done a lot to shove this topic in my face, mostly in the context of third-world/developing world women, and despite my societal differences I find it hard to keep myself distanced from their situation. I imagine myself worn out from childbirth, constrained in my whole adult life based on what culture and husband dictate to me. I listen for authoritarianism in Ethan's speech, I wonder at the way society has trained me to be a "proper" woman, grooming me subconsciously for a smooth domestic life. I fear the expectation of America once I am a happily married fertile woman instead of a free hoyden running amok with the other heathens cultural convention. Pressures from the older generations, expectations from the younger. Doubtless I am blowing the whole affair monstrously out of proportion but it is the first real thing to dampen my enthusiasm and make me wonder at the necessity of the legal process, the paper signing. I don't need that and the attendant expectations - but of course, it's what's expected.