hiddenmuse | Family and other Natural Disasters

I am home from my annual visit with the family ... and I have been for a couple of days now.

For some reason, I thought that if I waited a couple of days, to get over and process everything, it would be easier to deal with. Instead it's not.

It's so weird. I love my family because they're family. I can't stand my family because they're family. There were so many instances where my mom opened her mouth, and I had to bite my tongue, hard.

I guess I didn't realize how bigoted she could be, until the Christmas visit. I got to hear her go on about various families at church, and how they shelter their kids ... and how compared to them, she is a "cool mom", since she "listens to (her) daughter's music, listens to her daughter, etc." Then, she pretty much negates it by telling me a story of visiting my brother while he was still at school, and he'd mentioned his wanting to date a black girl (this was said sotto voce, of course...) - Mom said that she told him, "well, you know how I feel about that sort of thing..." {For the record, she'd never admit it, but inter-racial dating/marriage to her almost the same as inter-faith dating/marriage. It would just fuck up the kids for life, I guess.} As you can probably guess, he didn't date the girl.

In several other instances, anytime my mom would bring up African-Americans, they were referred to as "black people" and "black people" was always said in a whisper, as though she'd dropped an F-Bomb in polite company or something.

Then, there was her response to seeing a program about an MTF transsexual on TV - "That's disgusting". WOW. I guess that means that several people in my life - a co-worker's spouse; my sister (via her Family of Choice); the Safeway delivery woman ... are being written off as disgusting, because they don't fit into her mold of acceptability. What a shame....

And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, when I was being taken to the airport to go home, I heard about how my mom's best friend (someone that we call our "Aunt") was converting to Judaism, and because of this, she would "have to renounce Jesus ... and Heavenly Father won't recognize her when she dies." {Yeah ... take a minute to wrap your mind around that, and hold onto your seats, because it gets worse.} Apparently, upon getting this news, mom told her friend (of 30+ years) "While I don't agree with your decision..." As much as I'd love to think that she didn't actually *say this* - it wouldn't suprise me if she did.

So ... yeah. I apparently come from that gene pool. How the hell did that happen?