My Dad’s Getting Married…
…is probably the most surreal thing I’ll ever write here. Or maybe anywhere.
But it’s true. He proposed to his girlfriend (surreal thing number two) on Valentine’s Day (number two and a half) and he told all us kids this past Sunday that they will be getting married on March 31st.
I was in Texas for the Southwestern Photojournalism Conference at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, sponsored by Christians in Photojournalism this past weekend. That’s a mouthful. I’ve been off and on since college and have attended five or six conferences. Last year, I didn’t go because that was the weekend we moved to California.
Sunday, before I had to get to the airport to catch my flight, Dad, Kyle, Lacey, Jacob, Sharyl, Katie, Josh, Killian, Wiff, Jeanette and I all met at Texas Land and Cattle near the airport for a mid-afternoon meal. That’s where he told us the date they had set. So I got back from Texas on Sunday and booked my next trip out there next month. Judah’s going to be a flower girl.
Everyone wants to know how I’m doing and simply: I’m happy for my dad that he’s found someone to love and to love him in return. I want him to be happy - I want him to have companionship (though I did offer to buy him a dog) and to have love and all of those things. God knows he deserves it. Yes, I have mixed feelings, of course I do. It would be weirder if I didn’t. It’s good and happy and hard and raw and all of that, and really. Those emotions are mine and I don’t really want to share all of them, if everyone doesn’t mind. I need to feel right now, not process. My feelings and emotions are mine to feel and they’re intensely personal and while I appreciate the love and care from everyone, I just don’t want to hash this out with every person who asks.
I want to get through April 25 this year and make it out of this decade in one emotional and spiritual piece. So I don’t in ANY way mean to be rude, but if I don’t want to talk about it, please respect that. I don’t even have everything sorted out. Yet. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. I don’t know.
Everyone is asking me what I’m thinking and how I’m doing, and you know what? I wish I didn’t have to fucking ask myself that, because what I WISH, what I really WISH, is that my mom was still alive and none of this would even be a fucking issue. So take a tablespoon full of that with a tablespoonful of happiness for my dad, swallow it down, and there you go. Is your stomach feeling funky, too? Thought so.
(excuse the language. sorry ’bout that, Dad.)
February 28th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
thus a very cool thing about blogs-you can say this once, and all of us who read it will not have to ask you but will also know what’s going on. much love through your many texas trips!
now that killian has a tooth, if i lived near y’all (which i might, if i get in to berkeley), i would call him snaggle.
March 2nd, 2007 at 9:28 am
I think you put this very well. Make sure you put some lgbc time in your schedule when you come out- I want to see you and Judah and “Snaggle.”