Why You Should Never Get Married More Than Once (Or At All If You're Smart)

Now I'm going through a divorce & have only been physically out of my marital home for going on 7 months. However, I am as certain as I can be that I'm never, ever getting married again. If you are smart, take heed of my words & don't make my mistake the first time.

Why should you never get married? Many, many reasons.

1. Being married is not as glamorous or cool as it looks. If you had high standards for yourself & managed to land a total hottie (at least in your mind), you still have to deal with the fact that this hottie is a human being. (S)he has emotions, feelings, mood swings, psychological problems, quirks, pet peeves, whatever will undoubtedly piss you off about someone. You also have emotions, feelings, mood swings, psychological problems, quirks, pet peeves, etc. They WILL piss the other person off sooner or later.

It's all pretty & nice when you're in that warm, fuzzy love phase but eventually you leave that. Then you'd better hope you're not living with a slob, pro-lifer, alcoholic, money grubbing, insecure saboteur or whatever else infuriates & annoys you to the point that a trip to the nearest mental hospital looks more appetizing than spending another minute with this person.

I can now fully understand why people feel an urge to kill their spouses. Maybe it was your own psychosis or it was their psychosis driving you over the edge.

Think about if you had to be on a desert island with this person. Let's say they have some great survival skill you don't. Could you still stand to be around him/her even if they didn't have this great survival skill?

2. Immaturity. Ladies: some men are like dogs. The wealth of immature 30 something guys just astounds me. When I have to "train" you, you've already lost the battle with me. If that guy hasn't lived on his own for a while & had to take care of himself without Mommy & Daddy, you need to run like hell. If he has a sugar mommy & isn't facing hunger or homelessness or total ruin in some fashion, you'd better take some time to ask yourself (and him) if he expects YOU to fulfill that role if he commits to you.

A man seeking a meal ticket is a man you want nothing to do with. Let him find someone else dumb enough to finance his bullshit. Or leave him to pay for hookers since maybe with enough money, they can be motivated to give a damn about his laziness. That is called being a child. If you don't mind doing it & know this isn't the sort of guy you're going to want meeting friends, family, especially children who will resent him for taking their future inheritance, go right ahead & enjoy the short term benefits.

When I have to play games or make the first move ALL THE DAMN TIME with a guy, I'm not going to be interested. Especially when other guys contact me on their own initiative & take an interest in my life. Ditch me & you are done. Disrespect me (and reading a Facebook meme yesterday, I can assert that natural redheads are the grand divas based on hair color alone) & you are not only done, you can die in a fire. Somehow, a guy disrespecting a natural redhead dying in a fire seems very poetic. Our hair is described as "fire" and some jerk getting consumed by it just sounds like wonderful symbolism.

I took a Facebook test recently asking "What Color is Your Aura?" & I got red. Fitting for these times & maybe just in general.

3. In-laws!!! Many people are fucking immature. If you've seen "Mama's Family," you have a somewhat inflated idea of the scale of immaturity some people have when it comes to their parents. Unfortunately I saw too late just how immature my ex was. Being from NC, there's the whole tradition of "showing respect to your elders" and I think it turns lots of adults into overgrown children being slaves to Mommy & Daddy's whims and lives instead of doing their own thing.

It's even worse when kids are involved & gets plain insulting since some of these grandparents are just narcissistic assholes who could care less about their grandkids.

Coming from this tradition & seeing my mother, sister and childhood best friend subjected to all kinds of lessening of position and disrespect from in-laws, I really didn't want to get married at all. I was hard core about not putting up with that. Seems you have to be marrying a man, not a boy if you want a man to stand by you on that.

I thought I was okay b/c my ex said he didn't really like his family & had taken to ignoring most of their unpleasantness but indulging them on minor things. Don't fall for that one. When he decided to take out his personal issues on me & get pissy at me for being me, he sided with the people attacking his self-interest or stifling him in a heartbeat.

It would be cold of me to tell a guy "You can't marry or be in a serious relationship with me unless your parents are dead or you disown them." I've not really heard about a family where the daughter in law was welcomed with open arms, treated with respect and truly treated as "one of the family."

I fear some guys would have their parents whacked so they could be with me. While that might be a very sweet sentiment, it's just not something I think a person should do. After all, Susan Smith tried that with her kids & look what happened to her?

Word of advice: if you aren't dealing with a grown up man/woman vs. someone whose parents are too involved in their lives, have influence over who they date, what they wear, if they take that vacation, etc. run like hell. If that person picks their parents over you all the time, you will always lose if you get married. If you have children, it will get worse.

Frankly, if you have not asserted yourself as an adult you can't get involved with me. I had to finally do this last year after my father died & I ended up in a fight with my mother over the shirt I chose to wear. No 30 something should be having that fight with their parents. If you've got your own place, make your own money & especially if you have your own kids, your parents should NOT being doing things like that. If they are, something has gone very wrong or you have a hyper religious parent.

I am done with that. Give me a man with no living parents or who's disowned his parents & never talks to them. Some women might be turned off & repulsed. If he's got good looks, ambition & maturity, it might be all I can do not to just shout "Take me!!!" right then & there.

Remember I'm the woman who said she'd rather go to prison than live with her parents again.

4. The myth of "unconditional love." I already covered this one but marriage isn't about unconditional love. If it were, I'd still be married now. There is nothing you can do that would make someone stop loving you or caring if their love for you is unconditional. As I mentioned, it doesn't exist. Don't fool yourself into thinking otherwise. Fairy tale love is NOT real life.

If you find it, I think you just have it for the moment. I'd dare you to do something you know your SO won't like. Go have an affair, indulge in your vices, whatever it is they don't like you doing. I guarantee you'll eventually find yourself without that spouse. So much for "unconditional love," right?

5. That "compromise" stuff. I'm in a really selfish phase right now. The whole "giving" thing that is part of my personality is just completely spent. Think of it being like a guy who's just come & instantly dropped into unconsciousness or exhaustion; that's where my "standing by your man" and "caring" level is at.

Such a selfish feeling person can't do another serious relationship, where you have to care a little about the other person & try to help them advance in things. At least if you don't want to just waste your time & have unhealthy relationships or go out & get a job as a prostitute. I'm sure even prostitutes have to deal with caring about the client on some level, though. Get him to come at least.

The biggest mistake you can make is living someplace you aren't happy in to please a spouse or significant other. I would be a very miserable person living in NC & my home is NYC. That is where I feel my spiritual best & am my 100%. Yes, there are flaws in NYC & no place is perfect but it's a lie to say you'll be happy living anywhere as long as your sweetie is there. A story.

My father told me once when I was visiting NC one summer from college "Now you see why I drink," after I told him about my misery at being in NC instead of in Atlanta (which I loved as a city but not as "the South"). He continued to be miserable in NC, got falsely arrested after my sister's first husband died and eventually died suddenly at work last year.

Want that to be you? If you don't, you'd best be looking at your own happiness & needs because no one is going to really care about them like you. A spouse is "supposed" to do that stuff but a spouse is supposed to do a LOT of things like be a damn adult & put that family before the one they were born into. Countless don't.

6. Finding the right person is impossible. You might as well pursue a staring role on Broadway or try becoming President of the United States. I think a person would have a far better chance at succeeding at that stuff than having a marriage that doesn't just end with divorce (unless your spouse dies).

7. Ceding your independence. You have to do that in order to get married. Shared accounts, shared social media, shared cars, electronics, never getting to decorate as YOU want to. Once you lose your independence, it is a big pain to regain it. You feel like you've regressed to being a teenager (and you stay with your parents, you'll definitely feel that way).

I'm just not up to giving it up again once I regain it. After the ordeal of divorce, you wouldn't want to either. To want to do that would make you insane or far more giving than I ever was, even at my most charitable. I can be charitable to cats; I can't do that with people. Maybe that's because cats are cuter & don't pretend to like you or care when they really don't.

Now I say don't do it at all if you can help it but I know some people have to experience things for themselves. I was under the whole haze of love at one time myself. The guy I married made me feel things no one else ever had. I thought it was the real thing but clearly there is nothing. The best I can hope for is satisfying sex from a bunch of guys & the whole "everyday is a new adventure" idea. I find that freeing & wonderful. Also helps when people think you're in your 20s. Some days, looking younger than you are & prettier than most women are pluses.

If you have that, don't tie yourself down to one person who will end up not appreciating you or just taking you for granted.

I'm childfree so I have no kids to worry about having or messing up if I don't get married. I think I've made my point.

Conflict Free Holidays & Married People Problems

Back when my father died in June, I decided it was time to do something I've been dying to do for years: have holidays by ourselves. The husband & I were forced to do that one year when we were in a car accident on our way to Thanksgiving in Long Island. We ended up having pasta for Thanksgiving since that's what we had in the house and going to the local hospital to make sure he wasn't suffering from whiplash. We were driving in the rain on 15 in Connecticut and ended up hitting the car in front of us after our car hydroplaned.

Later, I did a make-up Thanksgiving for us complete with a HoneyBaked turkey, mashed potatoes, corn & pumpkin pie I made myself that I'd normally have for my family's Thanksgivings. That was a huge thing I'd missed with Thanksgiving with my in-laws: no homemade pumpkin pie & no Cool Whip. Well, for our make-up Thanksgiving I did it MY way. It was great & since then I've been dying to have our own holidays just the two of us.

Thanksgiving at my in-laws' house has typically consisted of extended family. That was never the case when I was growing up. Our Thanksgiving holiday was strictly immediate family & later friends or significant others of ours. We NEVER saw my relatives. The same goes for Christmas.

Why, you may ask? Because my grandparents were long since dead, my uncle lived far away & didn't get along with my father AND my father's siblings didn't get along with my mother. My parents & other relatives chose not to put themselves through the emotional torture & we had more peaceful holidays on our own. Or at least, relatively peaceful since my father did like to get drunk and show his butt on holidays. You at least didn't have to deal with gossip & nastiness behind your back and got good food at our house. My father also wasn't around later on & had calmed down in later years; last year's Thanksgiving was a good one since my husband got to have Honeybaked Ham (which he loves & never gets to have on his holidays).

My in-laws, however, have shown me without a doubt that they don't welcome, respect or give a damn about me. Apparently they mistake me for someone who gives a damn about their opinion or their commentary. They also seem to think they can censor my art & tell me what to think or feel.

You might notice some censor bars in recent posts. This is because my husband asked me to do this after getting a message from one of these jerks. To my knowledge, it was not a message of love or concern for the situation; instead it was meddling nonsense that should have been shut down with an "MYOB" (mind your own business, for those not in the know). Or perhaps an "MYOFB" would have worked also (you can guess what the "F" stands for).

Why these people care to read my blog, I have no idea. I would freely say anything I write here directly to their faces if prompted or asked. Plus, I've not heard any apologies or statements that my feelings and mindset on them & my idea of my place is wrong. Way to make me feel welcome or that I should bother going to any family function! That just tells me I'm doing the right thing in opting to do my own thing & not go someplace where I'm not welcome.

Since I did that make-up Thanksgiving and later made my own turkey breast, I know I can cook the main dish. I also don't get to see my childhood family because of my husband's schedule & had to fight to go last year. Plus, I've been married for 7 years; I think it's long past time for us as married people to do our own holidays. I think being married & especially all the strife I've been going through this year entitles me not to have to deal with anyone else's bullshit, melodrama & other things that are going to make holidays worse for me. If you were me, would YOU stand for this?

I also know of many people who have no place to go for holidays, have horrible relationships with their families or just get sick of them after a while & wanted to have a little safe zone for them. The only rule I've got is no bringing conflict.

I know tons of single people want to get married, especially single women. You people idealize marriage & married life, partly because the media & society tells you to. Let me tell you right now that the grass isn't always greener on the other side.

I like to think I don't idealize single life too much (I did live it for a lot of years myself in Atlanta & while living on my own) but there are things I miss in it.

I definitely miss not having to deal with in-laws at all though I told my husband from Day One that I wouldn't put up with disrespect from in-laws & would end the relationship in an instant if they won out over me. In-laws trying to put the Hays Code or prior restraint on me is definitely included in that; you'd think I was dealing with teenagers or little kids instead of grown people here. For me & from my experience hearing about them, it's like dealing with abusive parents you don't get to shut down yourself b/c "it's not your place." If you don't have a strong spouse who stands up for you, you are royally screwed. Just ask the people I saw dealing with it; just look at Mama's Family.

The self-sufficiency is also nice; as I've told single friends, if you marry someone their problems become YOUR problems. Even if you are the most well adjusted, beloved person on Earth if your spouse is having a bad day it's going to affect you as well. I think everyone should have to live on their own for at least a year before they ever get married. Manage their own household, pay their own bills, do their own day to day life stuff without Mommy & Daddy holding their hands. No one should be going from their parent's house to a marital home. It just causes problems, especially for women. Unless you want to do a lot of Mommyesque stuff, you don't want a man who hasn't had to take care of himself for a while.

Some of my single friends are bound to hear about my stuff & then turn around thanking their lucky stars every morning that they don't have to deal with married people problems. I'll just be happy if they take my wisdom on the subject seriously & not fuck things up for themselves.

Maybe a family friend had it right when she refused to be with a guy whose parents were still living. One requirement of dating her was your parents had to be dead since she had to deal with a lot of shit from her family. Perhaps an orphan who just took care of himself & had no family would be fine as well (the male version of Carrie Bradshaw in that regard; no one ever says a word about her family or if she has any & there's nothing about in-laws meddling in her relationships). One thing I can say is I'm not censoring my blog or writing it to cater to a pack of busybodies who refuse to behave like mature adults or dial direct. Nor am I going to infantalize myself for anyone's family. You take me for who I am or screw off.

Married people would probably be much happier if they took that stance. It seems like sooner or later you have to stand up to your family & say "No more! I'm an adult & you can't treat me like that. MYOB/piss off/whatever choice statement applies to the situation!" I don't have children so why should I tolerate in-law garbage? If I did, I'd never want to show a kid that it's okay for anyone to abuse you or treat you like crap for any reason; abiding this shit would be doing just that & don't we have enough screwed up people in this world without adding on?

If you're thinking of asserting yourself, I highly recommend it. If only more of us were truly authentic in our lives. As a person, it's done wonders for my mental state.

I'd still love to meet someone with a functional family. It would give me some renewed hope in humanity & perhaps let me dare to believe that not all families are made up of the immature, petty & emotionally bankrupt (or at least not use my current belief as a reason to never, ever remarry or seriously date if I end up having to flee from this marriage). Oh well, at least I'm doing some fun stuff in the next few days & making career progress. I'll remember who believed in me & who didn't.

When a Funeral Becomes Tragedy Porn

First off, it seems I have to define the term "tragedy porn." I told friends of mine that I'm finally finished with it & 2 of them were confused; one actually though I'd done porn! I also had another friend who thought my husband had died instead of my sister in law. I'll have to send her a private message later since I've got a lot to tell her but first, let me define this term. I hope I gave an explanation that really did it justice for those friends but in case I didn't let's define it.

You know when there's a tragedy the media will cover it excessively? For instance, when 9/11 happened you couldn't watch anything on television b/c of all the footage of the World Trade Center towers. Not just on news channels but EVERYWHERE. They had no news to report at the time but it was happening for days & days on a loop.

After a while, people felt like enough was enough. That is how I felt about this whole recent death thing.

If you've read prior entries, you know I'm no stranger to the death of close family members. I've been to quite a few funerals & recently had to help in the planning of my father's funeral. I know a thing or two about them & what's customary vs. overkill.

I had no beef with my sister in law. She was like my father in some ways. Unfortunately, she was like him in the sense of having addictions & not being a functional human being to quite a few people. I felt bad for her family since boy do I know what it's like to live with someone who has an addictive personality & addiction problems. She also didn't want to get help for herself, resulting in my husband not being able to have a close relationship with her. Nor did she seem to want to have a close relationship with him. Maybe them being from 2 different generations also didn't help matters (10+ years age difference) though you could never have called my sister in law unhip. I'm also sure she had to be a far better mother to her kids than my mom was to me since she actually had hard times in her youth, knew all the tricks & that teenagers are going to rebel. She didn't go around trying to fight that fact or damning her kids for all eternity.

She struck me as the type of mom who could handle any problem her kids might have without being a judgmental jerkwad, resenting them for being successful or harping on some issue for the rest of their lives. I never heard her being judgmental about or toward anyone & she actually argued with her mother with positions I'd take myself.

Plus, she appreciated my fashion sense & always made me feel welcome in the family.

My most memorable story of her was when she came to see our apartment with her kids & husband. She told us that our street was where she used to go score drugs. I always saw her as a hip older sister; perhaps had I been able to have a closer relationship, she could have been the hip older sister I never had.

We had the wakes yesterday & the funeral today. Here's where it becomes tragedy porn:

1. I had to go to BOTH wakes since my ride chose to do this. One wake was bad enough; I cried some in that one. You couldn't help it since you saw her in the casket & the slide show had recognizable music (including "Angel" by Sarah MacLachlan, the song most known for being played in those mistreated animal commercials). I will also never be able to hear the song "Always" by Atlantic Starr in the same way, though I thought it was sweet for the slideshow & fitting for my sister in law. After all, she had decent taste in music. She's the one who exposed my husband to great classic rap I didn't get to listen to until much later.

At least one relative told us the music included was just too sad for things.

Also, no one I have ever heard of a funeral for had 2 wakes. You got one wake; that was it. We had one wake for my father & my mother didn't even want that. In fact, my mother in law outright said she didn't want one when she's dead since she hates the fake concern from people who never bothered reaching out or contacting the deceased when (s)he was alive. She makes a very good point.

2. At the second wake, we had to be subjected to a pastor trying to proselytize to us. One prayer is one thing; it's another to be telling people they have to put their hope in God or bad things will happen (or imply it).

Newsflash, Christians!!! Not everyone plays on the God Squad or wants to.

Why should atheists, agnostics, Pagans & others who don't follow YOUR beliefs have to feel attacked and alienated when they go to pay their respects to a loved one? Particularly a loved one who probably wouldn't have wanted these people to be subjected to a sermon. I don't recall my husband being subjected to harassment from his sister on religious matters when she felt religious at a given moment. You don't hear about atheists or agnostics trying to shove their faith down believers' throat at their loved ones' funerals or using their speakers to deliver sermons & "save souls."

3. We were all sitting in rows of chairs in there while the body was out & with the comfy seats in front for the family. My husband was in a fuzzy situation since he was the brother but my husband's parents were in the front and, of course, you had my brother in law & their kids. My husband didn't want to be in front anyway so we opted to talk to other relatives and let them know we should be getting together under more pleasant circumstances & in less formal settings.

This is not something I've ever seen in the South & only with my husband's family (those are the only funerals I've been to up here). Again, I've been to a LOT of funerals. Our wake was in a large room, no chairs except comfy ones on the side. They also had comfy seats in the hallway so you didn't have to stay in the cold viewing rooms if you didn't want to be in there anymore.

Here you had the downstairs lounge near the office or had to stand in the hallway. There was also the option of going outside (which was also available at my father's wake).

I really hate that setup. It feels like you should see a speaker or a performance. If you're not, everyone just sits in dead silence, watches the slideshow a thousand trillion times and is encouraged to just sit like we're in some church sermon. At least in an open room, conversation will happen & people won't feel awkward about engaging in it. Plus, you know to keep your stuff with you or can put it in a comfy seat where no one is likely to steal it from you.

There's only so many times you can sit and view a slideshow that way before you feel like enough is enough.

4. This morning, we had to ride in rush hour traffic from our house about an hour away to then sit ANOTHER hour watching yet another slide show in the same room with the same seating setup. I was like "This is no longer a funeral!! It's tragedy porn! I have to get out of here."

I'm not sure whose grand idea it was to tell everyone to come in at 9:30 & then not bother doing ANYTHING until more than an hour later. That person should be forced to give me a free glass of pulpy orange juice & pay our gas costs for sitting in the crap we had to sit in to travel 2 counties away.

Not to mention my stomach was growling during all this while I'd eaten breakfast before I came (no orange juice so I was also sleepy & POed from getting up at the crack of dawn, at least in The Angry Redheaded Lawyer's world). When I get paid to get up at 7 in the morning, we'll talk about the early/lateness of the hour. Until I do, I'm sleeping in & you can keep your sob stories to yourself. Oh, and as a rule entertainment people generally keep later hours than everyone else when they get to make that choice.

5. We also had to take side detours to the homes in the town where the deceased lived. One of them wasn't even a residence my husband remembered & he couldn't tell you which one was her old home. As he pointed out, what is the good in that? The people who wanted to do that could do it on their own time instead of dragging the full procession there. Who were we burying, my sister in law or JFK? I'm shocked no one tried to have the full town closed. Who doesn't think that's self-indulgent?

No funeral I have been to in history EVER did this. My father's did not include a drive by of homes where nobody knew where they were or why it was the least bit significant. We had the good sense not to drag people to bad neighborhoods to wheel his corpse all over town.

We went straight to the cemetery & that was that. The nostalgia tours (which are totally for the living, not the dead) were not inflicted on our funeral attendees. Not to mention people have lives aside from funerals on a weekday. They have jobs, rush hour traffic & plenty of other things to contend with.

6. The funeral home staff seemed determined to drag this out for as long as humanly possible. We sat in our car for what felt like eternity before the tour of homes began. It was ridiculous & showed poor planning. We sure didn't have a long ass wait when we were burying my father; we got that show on the road.

I also don't remember our driver going slowly like this one did; my father would have been pissed if that happened anyway since he (as well as the rest of my family) was known for being a lead foot & someone who complained about slow drivers. We've all got some road rage & don't deny it.

7. Finally, there were about a trillion "final goodbyes" to the deceased. We had more prayers, put our flowers on the casket and you'd think we'd be done. The word "final" didn't have the conventional meaning here.

One big thing about every other funeral I've been to: you DO NOT get to hang around & watch the cemetery staff put your loved one in the ground or the drawer. No one ever hung around for it & we felt it was done, time to move on. The dead person isn't at that cemetery; they are gone.

Not this time. My husband & the other family members go over to the drawer to watch them load the casket in. I did not. Instead I sat on benches & looked at the dates of life and death for people in this cemetery. I noticed that a lot of people with Italian last names lived for far longer than most of my relatives, leading me to think longevity is apparently good if you're an Italian living in Long Island. Saw very few plaques for people who died younger. That made me mad since my family's longevity is not even close to 80s-90s; try 60s.

I was also done by that point. A person can't be around death & all that tragedy all the time, non-stop for days on end like that. You say your goodbyes & get the show on the road. Dragging it out like this was just picking at scabs & giving the wound no chance of healing.

I put my flower down on the casket, I went through before the first wake to say goodbyes, the end of the second wake & before we left for the procession. I did all my goodbye saying at the start; I didn't need multiple times for that. Sister in law also isn't a high rank on all this in my book. I wasn't even acknowledged in the obituary or to half the people who paid their respects.

At what point did this become tragedy porn for me? The second wake long before the pastor arrived & sitting around over an hour this morning like we were in church to watch the second slideshow.

So if you're planning a funeral, a few things to consider:

1. Respect for others. The world doesn't revolve around YOU. Think about what the deceased would have wanted. Would (s)he want the people who came to mourn him/her feel unwelcome at the service? Would the deceased want you wheeling his/her corpse all over town? Would the deceased want you to drag out the entire process & dwell on things, Catholic guilt or not? Most of us aren't self-centered, self-indulgent jerks who think everyone else should hang around the rest of the decade & watch the same tributes ad nauseam. How about some appreciation & respect for people who are taking time off their jobs, not watching their kids, getting up at the crack of dawn, braving rush hour, whatever to show up?

2. Demand your funeral staff to be efficient. We could have been told to show up an hour later & I could have gotten more sleep. Perhaps we'd have also avoided the traffic we hit to get there. Make sure they have their shit together & organize things beforehand so they're not running around for things or encouraging people who took time away from work & their own lives to attend.

3. If you must have a wake, don't do that seating thing unless you're bringing in a stand-up comic or others are going to get up & speak about the deceased most of the time. Don't force people to sit there for 30 minutes+ on end with the tribute on loop & zero access to food (since NY law supposedly forbids anyone bringing food or drink to a funeral home; what if they're toting a young child, I wonder?) or loud conversation with others. You could also be forgiven if you're bringing in a dancer, preferably burlesque. The people with kids should also appreciate this since however much we hate that mess, they have to hate it more since that's just cruel.

Imagine my autistic nephew having to do that; he'd lose his shit very quickly. In fact, his screaming would be a welcome relief from the somber, depressing atmosphere. Watching these younger kids interact made me feel a little better at the cemetery. Life affirming stuff, maybe? I don't know.

Younger children at funerals just make it feel better to me since they're not bound by the rules of decorum adults are & generally get to be their rambunctious, crazy selves without too many adults getting pissy about it. As long as they're not being bratty like pulling people's hair or knocking flowers down, they should be around to bring levity to the proceedings if the family refuses to have a celebration of life & insists on imposing the law of tragedy porn.

My husband had the nerve to tell me earlier I didn't know what it was like to have someone die & have unfinished business with them. I had to remind him he was wrong. I hope he'll take the advice he gave me before.

Also, I know I'm not a goth or like Harold of Harold & Maude. Maybe going to a funeral is okay if you don't know the person but if you do? It just sucks & it's worse when it gets into tragedy porn territory. I already told my husband I'm not going to any more wakes or funerals unless it's for immediate family or a very close friend (as in, someone I've bared my soul to who didn't run for the hills when I did). I can't do The Death Channel; some people seem to want to live in it but I can't. I like to live in today & have no regrets about doing a modeling gig on Saturday. I don't want to feel like my career & plans are being halted and derailed because of all this shit. I already felt like I lost the month of June with my family stuff; I don't want to lose this month or next as well.

If you're wondering if this changes my general feelings on family, it doesn't. I never signed up for sainthood & would never tell you I'm perfect. I also think it's extremely hypocritical to say "Family is who is there for you & what you create, not blood" while telling someone they shouldn't disown their parents b/c "They're your PARENTS!!!" When you feel about a family member the way Thelma Harper felt about her mother, I think it's time to move on (Mama's Family reference; she felt her mother was a critical shrew who never had a kind word for her & disparaged everything about her, her husband and her family--you also saw this play out in flashbacks). I can't wait to get the full show in October & probably relate to parts of it way too much. Mama's Family is not far off from Southern families I've seen (though it takes place in the Midwest, not the South), especially if the family isn't rich.