Family

One of my favorite musicals is Les Miserables. I grew up performing in community and semi-professional theatre. I was never great in musical theatre, tending more toward dramas (I'm sure you're shocked) but I loved this one. For starters, it sort of perfectly illustrates musical theatre theory. I'll not say anymore about that because you either don't care, or you do; and if you do, you're nerd enough to probably already know what I mean. But secondly, the show reminds me why I admire fiction writers so. To come up with so many characters, scenarios, side stories... it just boggles my mind. I am completely a non-fiction writer which I know is a different skill set on its own. But I can't help feeling that fiction writing is in some way superior. Makers of fiction, I bow to you.

I watched a DVD of a high school Les Mis production tonight. My sister-in-law was in it recently, and they are visiting us from Philadelphia. As she and I sang along, I realized this may be my in.

You see, I don't really know them yet. And I also miss another family, a different set of in-laws, and I'm trying to reconcile it all.

When I set out to write this blog, I set out to accomplish a couple of things. I wanted another writing project. Also, I am in a process of confronting the losses I've experienced. They haven't all been deaths. I also went through a divorce in my early 20s. In that, I lost a family. And there are days, these years later, when I still miss them.

My ex and I met in middle school. We had the same friends. I met his parents around the same time. Beginning junior year of high school, we started dating. I spent at least three nights a week hanging out at their home. My mother and I were going through a difficult time. She had begun dating for the first time since my father died when I was six years old, and I didn't particularly care for the guy. She and I fought a lot. I escaped to my ex and his family's home. Soon I was crying on their sofa, telling his parents about my mom and I. Soon I was in on the inside jokes of the family. They started attending my plays. I was invited on family vacations. His sisters became the sisters I never had. I never really thought about them as "my husband's family," but as my family. By the time he and I married, they were indeed my family. I loved them deeply. We had traditions. And the tug of doubt nestled in the depths of myself on my wedding day were silenced yet again when I spotted my father-in-law waiting for me to walk down the aisle. I married them, really. At that point, my mom was really my only living family member. I remember being so content knowing that when she was gone I would have other parents, two sisters, brothers-in-law, eventual nieces and nephews. I had a family in a way that I never had before, and in a way that I thought I never would. And there they were.

And there they went.

By the time of the divorce, I had grieved that relationship, I think. The hardest part was losing them. I had these grand delusions that we'd all remain friends somehow. Instead, there was an abrupt end to communication, an immediate severing, to a family. I understand perfectly that it most likely helped me to move on and create a new life. I also understand that they needed to rally around their son. Yet I missed them. Once in a while I still do.

And now, because I fell in love with P, I get his family too. This is wonderful, indeed. But I'm not ready, I think. I'm not ready to take it all on again. And I don't know that it would really be the same. I knew my other family during formative years. This new family will be different. This other family knew my mother. This new family did not. And perhaps it is too much to ask right now to take on the role of daughter in a family, fresh off the loss of my mother. I know my situation makes them want to embrace me more. But my grief makes me want to take my time. I don't love as easily as some people. I don't hug people I've just met and resent those who assume I'd like to be touched. Grieving is not a great time to meet new people, at least for me. You inevitably share current events, and my current events make people uncomfortable. They make me uncomfortable. But they are there. And they are me.

My former in-laws are me, my ex-husband is me. My father who died 20 years ago, my mother who died almost a year ago, my adoptive father who died two months ago; all me. To share my story is to share those losses, and I don't know that I'm in a place to trust another set of humans again with my pain.

At the end of Les Mis, Cosette is given a letter, telling her her life story, basically. Secrets are revealed. She learns her history. It's all presented in black and white, finalized, and neat. You get the sense that even as she grieves, she has peace. But life, at least mine I suppose, is never so neat and final.