Meeting the Family

Tell us about a time you were being carefully watched, or a time you were stuck somewhere you didn’t like.  How was everyone else acting? What did you do?

“… that are really kind of dissonant. And um, when you’re in a place you don’t want to be, I feel like you’re feeling all of those things all at one time. Um, there’s the things you are really trying to – trying really hard to enjoy, there’s a couple things that you’re like clinging onto, like this is gonna make it ok. Um, and there’s times when you’re just like, this is horrible. Um, I had only been dating my boyfriend – who is now my husband – for only a month or so, and his uncle died. His father’s twin brother, died. Um, and he basically drank himself to death, it was a terrible situation, his family was just devastated because they were all blaming themselves for not helping this guy out. Um, and then they were also just angry that he had done this to himself and the rest their family. Um, but, I, as the new girlfriend, then had to drive on down there and meet the family during this really terrible time of grief. So we were there for an entire week and it was the first I met his parents, first time I met his siblings, first time I met his extended family. Um, and he was a wreck too. He, like – I didn’t really even know him well enough to speak to him about what kind of situation he was in. Um, and, his family was like, “nice to meet you… you’re cute and nice… but…” I can’t – they had no time to get to know me, um, and I felt useless, I didn’t know what I could do to help other than to be there, because, that was my purpose, just to be there next to him. Um, and so, it was a really complicated situation because you want to – I wanted to be there for him and I wanted to be the good girlfriend and prove myself that I could handle the hard situation. But it was a hard situation. It was really terrible, and it was really terrible to watch his family go through that and to get to know them in a time when they couldn’t put on a show at all. They were beyond any kind of… politeness. So, it was – that, that music – I felt, ya know, the same kind of things. Where you’re just lost and you don’t know. There’s just so much going on. So many things inside your head and are going on around you.”