Familys are Forever... ish

My Mom got married this week.

I found out thanks to facebook.
Well, actually I found out from my brother texting me telling me to look at facebook.
He found out from one of his friends texting him telling him to look at facebook.
Honest to Zeus truth.

To be fair, she had told us kids that she was getting married sometime in the middle of March.
To be fair, she's been saying she was getting married "sometime soon" for six months. How were we to know she meant it this time?

My grandmother is very big into genealogy. When I was young she used to pay me a few extra bucks to read aloud old birth and death certificates while she copied the info onto sheets and sheets of family trees. She would show me furniture around her house and have me recite the ancestors it belonged to. For better or worse she installed a strong sense of the importance of family in me.

So it's weird to suddenly wake up one morning, look at my phone and discover not only do I have a step dad, but also six step siblings. Who I've never met. It would be easy to say it's not a huge deal, I'm an adult, I don't live at home, none of my siblings live with my mother, so nothing has really changed. But my sense of family is disturbed.Will we spend christmas together? Am I expected to remember their birthdays?

Or hell, maybe I should know their names first.

I'm not sure what to do with these new people. I feel like I should reach out, get to know them. I mean, they are family now, right? But what do I say?
"Hey, your dad married my mom. Let's be friends".

Right.

One of my step sisters sent me a facebook request tonight.
Silly me, why didn't I think of that?

In November Tyson got married. That simple act expanded our family by one.



Now our family is even bigger. By a lot.

We're going to need a wider lense

Nostaglic..

I miss my partner in crime.
My roommate.
My one time fiance
( it was high school, he proposed during math, with a gum wrapper ring. How could I say no?)

I miss the midnight shots of whiskey with sprite chasers. I miss the impromptu dance parties in the living room. I miss cheese crisps and burn notice. I miss pool days and my fabulous tan. I miss crawling into your bed and wrestling and begging with you to let me stay. I miss waking up to music that you put on extra loud so I would wake up. I miss midnight walks to the pool and the hot tub, and running in the early morning back to the house, wet and freezing. I miss post it notes all over the house. I miss getting ready for parties and having you critique what I was wearing. I miss nights on the patio with you and Albin smoking while I sit in the window. I miss drawing tattoos on each other with washable markers we bought specifically for that purpose. I miss knowing there was all someone who was on my sleep schedule and wanted to have an adventure. I miss that weird creepy walk you do when you're trying to scare me. I miss your total lack of conscience. I miss bitching about our weight together. I miss your horrible attempts to cook eggs. I miss phase ten and drinking games. I miss.. you.

"Just in case we don't survive, I want you to know I love you."
Five hours later
"Sooo we survived... well this is awkward.."

We did it for the scars and the stories, not the fame.

Living together wasn't perfect, but good god was it fun.
Ryan, darling. I think it's time for a sleepover. I'll bring the jack. You bring the music. The fun, adventure and trouble will follow naturally.