I’m feeling like a genuine, for real, totally grown up adult these days; even though I’m not at all done learning or growing up. Boyfriend and I have been planning our Thanksgiving weekend and this year we’re doing both my family and his which feels like a thing that grown-ups do in sitcoms but I’ve never actually done in real life. So tomorrow we’re taking off to visit my mum and on Sunday we’re driving back to the city to see his parents, there were car rentals and planning involved, big stuff for this little girl.
I know we’ve been committed to each other for more than a year now but there’s something very real about spending holidays together and something even more surreal about spending holidays with each other’s families. I’m not sure exactly when I grew up or when families came into play but when Boyfriend’s mom asked if I would be coming for Thanksgiving it gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling, like hugging a stuffed creature, and suddenly it was as if I realized that there are other people invested in our relationship, other people who want us to work out just as much as we do.
I’m not concerned about breaking up, not even a little bit, but I wonder how much harder it must be to break up with someone who you love when you love their family and friends too. Does that make ending things even worse? Maybe that’s why I’ve stayed away from anything serious for so long, because I knew the next time it would be real and until last year I wasn’t ready for that, I wasn’t ready to be all in if it meant that it could end one day.
So my mum loves Boyfriend, I love his family and tomorrow Boyfriend will meet my little brother for the first time; Boyfriend insists that they will tag team the mocking and by the end of the weekend they will totally be friends forever. I would say that I’m nervous but I’m not really I’m actually excited to include Boyfriend in all the family activities, mostly the turkey eating though because turkey is awesome.
I still feel like I’m playing house a little bit, I’m not the girl who goes home for Thanksgiving let alone going home with a boyfriend, I usually spend turkey day drinking wine and catching up on the TV I’ve missed in the past week it’s a long weekend that I enjoy because the pressure to go home is limited until Christmas comes around.
I don’t know that being a fully fledged grown up lady will ever feel normal, maybe I’ll always feel like I’m 6 years old walking around the house in my mum’s heels pretending to be a fabulous twenty something before I even knew what that meant. I don’t know how I’ll feel in a year or two from now but for now I like this game of dress-up.
