Saturday, Jul. 30, 2005 - 3:24 p.m.
Let's see. In my life.
This week saw one of the biggest fights me and Jairo have had. And the thing is, it came from nowhere. I'm not going to go into it very much. but I seriously thought he was going to break up with me.
It ended up being that he's not been saying things when they bther him and they all burst out at once, giving me a sort of "where'd this come from" feeling when he emailed a bunch of reasons for wanting to have time alone.
When we finally talked, he tried to say that that was all just stuff he didn't mean, but I told him it came from somewhere so let's talk about it. and we did. And hopefully the communication barriers will start to come down.
Now I am at his house and we've bailed on week old plans to go to the beach with his friend James and company. This is Jairo's doing. I tried all angles to get him to go since he'd agreed to it a week ago and I kind of wanted to. I told him I wanted to, I told him James would be mad. He just didn't want to go.
He says he was sure there woudl be stress, but I think it has more to do with his brother being in town and maybe not wanting to go. I feel guilty and a little frustrated.
His brother is a military guy. So he acts a certain way about certain things and talks about women a certain way and has a certain sense of humor that I don't get (we'll call it dumb humor) so I'm working hard on my patience.
Not to mention that he also constantly talks in we's. by that I mean, he'll say something that is basically a statement of how he is, but make it a we statement meaning him and Jairo. "We like those kind of movies, we're very random like that" etc. There's a severe lack of moving on. And he seems to have the attention span of a child.
And there's cultural or maybe just family differences that are really making me uncomfortable in their home.
The biggest right now being the amount of clothing everyone wears. His mother will walk through the house in a towel to her bedroom after a shower...past me and him! That weirds me out! And her standard clothing in the house is a nightgown thing that has straps slightly thicker than spaghetti straps and comes down only to her mid thigh, well above the knee. And his brother walks around in just shorts all the time. And I don't know, it just makes me vaguely uncomfortable.
And today his brother mentioned their "Uncle's wife." so I asked a bit and found out that any of the people that marry into the family to their aunts or uncles they call by their first name and not "uncle so and so, etc."
To me this is very telling. It says to me that no one not born of the family is ever consiered part of it. I will never be part of this family, I will always just be Jairo's girlfriend or whatever.
I feel this is sometimes made very clear. For example. I am currently on the computer in the other room. Their mom's boyfriend of like over 6 years just walked past into his and her bedroom. And Jairo, alvaro and their mom are watching a movie in the living room. I feel fairly certain that if I went out there, she would leave the room, since she's never sat and watched a movie with Jairo or even with him and alvaro when I'm around. And I'm sure that if marcelo (her boyfriend) sat down, Alvaro would leave the room.
Perhaps this shouldn't bother me, and honestly to an extent it doesn't. But it got me thinking
Family is a fluid concept. Different to many people. Theirs is obviously very rigid (and in my opinion cold). Mine is very open.
I am the kind of person that considers my close friends family. And I grew up with many people that were sort of adopted into the family. My parents close friends were called "aunt" or "uncle." My aunt married my uncle and I don't call him AJ, I call him "Uncle AJ." And even the ones I don't like are family becasue they've been in it for years.
Plus, when someone's been married into the family for over 10 years (like their "uncles wife") it feels like a respect issue to me to not call them aunt or uncle.
My brother's wife, my sister's husband, family.
I mean, I guarantee in my mom's head, Jairo already is family.
I like my concept of family more.
So, now we're going to end up watching movies and playing video games all day. (which his brother will exclaim about loudly enough to drown out the movie while we do) Which means, I'm going to end up watching a movie or two at most and then getting on the computer and trying to write.
Tomorrow I am going to see a friend do a comedy show in the city (for which I have to pay much too much, but want to be there for him). I hope he's funny enough that I laugh, silly as that sounds.
