A Script for Clearing the Air

Mom and Dad, I'm calling today because Sonia came out to her parents about two and a half months ago. They had a hard time with it at first (her mother threatening suicide, her father insisting she can still get back on "the right path" and not ruin her life).

But just over two months later, I've had two dinners with them and her mother is dropping hints about babies and asking to meet you while we make kim bop.

What a natural parental instinct -- to want to meet the person that your child has chosen, then to want to meet their family.

It made me remember a tipsy phone call we had about a year after Sonia and I started dating. I was the only tipsy one, to my knowledge. I called your house needing a bit of honesty. I remember talking about my admiration for Sonia and her parents from a half a dozen different angles, trying to help you see why this relationship was the best one of my life.

That would have been a good and appropriate time for you to say you wanted to meet them. But you didn't. I did most of the talking.

Instead, Sonia and I are approaching our four-year anniversary and it seriously shocked me when her parents said they wanted to meet you. When I realized that this "meet the parents" moment was probably going to happen, my stomach sank.

Would you be willing to do it? Furthermore, do I even want you to meet them without knowing if you would support our marriage? What about kids?

I haven't put my life on hold, but I don't look forward to milestones because of the weight of navigating them with shaky parental support.

I'm thirty-six years old and I've built my own life. But the desire for parental acceptance is strong. I've held onto a candle of hope that the two of you would come around, but the flame is fanned by an absence of conversations, an avoidance of the big topics.

I won't let our marriage and any children we're lucky enough to have be tainted by your shaky support or overt judgement.

Sonia and I would like your support during these upcoming milestones, but if there is some point your religion won't let you pass, we need to know now. So we can get on with it, with all of the information.

Our First Month as Homeowners

When last I wrote, Sonia and I were selecting paint samples and gathering boxes, finishing the bottom of peanut butter jars and pitching stale snacks. 

We've been in the new house a little over a month.

The most surprising thing?

I'm doing a lot more "when my parents were my age..." math. It mattered less when I was in an apartment. But check out this smattering of riches:

• When my parents were my age, they'd owned three homes. 
• When my parents were my age, they'd built their dream home, which they live in to this day. 
• When my parents were my age, I was eight. 
• When my parents were my age, my brother was five. 
• When my parents were my age, they had two acres of land that they somehow kept pristine while keeping both my brother and I alive. 

I guess you could say I'm appreciating them a little bit more this morning. 

The most lovely thing?

Sonia and I are communicating well, maybe better than ever before. 

We had our first two major fights since moving in, about money and my taste for alcohol. We do math completely differently and get to the same answer, but it drives us both nuts that the other person cannot understand our methods. I drink more during transition times as I'm working on getting into a new routine. 

Also very cool: 

• Waking up in the bed we own, in the house we own!
• The Icelandic blue Sonia painted our bedroom with the help of some friends. Both the color and the fact that it happened without me. Like magic!
• The gorgeous feng shui of our tiny office after I moved some furniture around. 
• We have a laundry room. 
• I can't wait to come home after work. Making dinner and walking around the neighborhood feel like bigger occasions than they have in the past. 

Home ownership never excited my imagination in the hypothetical. I didn't dream of a house I might love to own. I didn't even have a long-term plan for home ownership "one day." We both had good jobs and a little savings, so we made it work quickly. 

Now that there's an actual house, I see projects everywhere. Bring down the wall in the front foyer; expand the small first-floor bathroom; rip out the scraggly hedges lining the sidewalk. Sonia sort of understands that this is my creativity at work, but made me promise not to tear any walls down in the middle of the night. 

Not only do I see projects, but I'm excited to tackle them. Bring on the surprises, the magic, the future!