BOUNDARIES? WHAT DO YOU EAT THAT WITH?

Now that I am happily married to my own blue eyed gringo, I am always stricken by the differences between us and our respective families. Marriage is hard business indeed, (all that seating on pee because they won’t put the sit up, hearing them go the bathroom, or worse yet when you are warned not to go in right after they leave it…it’s hard work indeed.

Since my cousins, my sister and I are all married to men from different cultures, I never run out of things to compare notes about. We are one of those brave few who jump in a risky venture like marriage with the added variant of a cultural gap. Believe me they are never ending, from something as minor as the cartoons we watched growing up, pop culture references to something major like the holidays and how we relate to other family members.

Take for example when my Dear Husband and I started dating, my aunt and grandma where so curious they demanded I took a picture of him, they asked me about his profession, how tall he was, if he was cute and if he came from a good family. All I had to say was that he had pretty blue eyes (he insists they are green) a college degree and his parents were missionaries to guarantee the seal of approval.

I was present when Dear Husband called his grandpa for father’s day and the conversation was something like this: “I hear you have a new girlfriend” Grandpa L said. “Yes, grandpa, I do” He answered looking at me smiling and holding my hand all romantically. “Is she black?” Grandpa L asked making Dear Husband blush as I gasped with the spit I swallowed wrong.

Now I am NOT implying that my now grandpa-in-law is racist, not at all! The man is also an ex-missionary who has helped and lived with people of all races, nationalities and cultures, but the fact is, here in America marrying outside of your race or culture is still something that is worth discussing. Worth talking about. I laughed my ass off when he asked that and even more when Dear Husband said: “No, she’s Hispanic” and his grandpa said: “Ooo a hot Latina” Which I found adorable.

I have 27 first cousins, FIRST Cousins, and that does not include all the second cousins and the cousins of cousins that I also consider cousins. Dear Husband has five or six? Our differences don’t end there. Dear Husband is close to his family in such a different way I am to mine. Boundaries and privacy are practically non-existent when you are Hispanic, there are no secrets, no gossip left untold, no argument between couples that the whole family doesn’t hear about and no medical treatment that some cousin is taking that we are not all privy of. I knew the moment that one of my cousins was diagnosed with irritable bowel movement, I knew when my other cousin started treatment to get pregnant and how often and when during the day she took her shots, I knew when she got an urinary tract infection and I knew that my other cousin was suffering from an early form of ulcer.

We are so all up in each other’s business ALL THE TIME that I find it weird refreshing when Dear Husband doesn’t know intimate details about his brother or sister. I know details of my family’s sex life that I don’t want to know about but know anyway, that’s how it works for us, close to the point of sickness.

My parents in law came to our wedding and stayed in a hotel, to what my mom said: “What for? We have a pull out couch” In a completely puzzled tone of voice, and would’ve been offended if I didn’t tell her that is just the way they are, and they were trying to be nice by not inconveniencing us. “What inconvenience? We are family now” She said and to this day I still think she thinks they thought her couch was not good enough.

Pull out couches had to be a Hispanic invention. What a better way to guarantee family members to stay over at all times! My mom’s cousins (they were raised together they are not even related!) spent 5 months each year for two years living with us. They would come in December and leave in April and stay with us the entire time. Dear Husband who was living with me at the time (IN SIN! Scandal!) had a hard time understanding that concept. He didn’t understand why someone would want to spend five months cramped in one room when there were other alternatives, hotels, apartments for rent, etc. He doesn’t understand that Hispanic families have two problems, they have a problem saying no, so even if we didn’t want them there we couldn’t say anything and we have a complete disregard for our family’s space and need for privacy.

I am sure next time his family comes over they will rent a hotel room again and stay over there while we in a very civilized way see each other for dinners and brunches and then part company at night when everybody goes their until the next morning.

In my family there is no hotel room good enough when there is an extra bed empty where cousins, uncles, aunts and grandparents can crash, there is no meeting for brunch but two hours of complete and utter bedlam while ten people try to make breakfast, talking and laughing at the same time and asking for coffee at the top of their lungs. There is no room service but an uncomfortable yet common sharing of bathroom to pee while others shower. There’s the saying “Oh mija me guindas de cualquier clavito” which roughly translates to “Oh hon you can put me anywhere” Actually if one family member were to call the other asking if it was a problem to stay over we would assume they are mad at us. “I think she’s mad at me! Why else would she call to ask and make a sarcastic question about being able to stay? What does she want? A written invitation?”

Dear Husband opened the door to find some family members at the door who were staying the night to travel to a town close by. “Oh I didn’t know they were coming” He said to me hugging everyone and giving them kisses in the cheek like he learned to do since we met. “Neither did I” I said and he just laughed at us and our utter lack of etiquette when it comes to family.

I have been blessed with the most sociable of gringos who has not one complained about the size of my family, the frequency of their visits or the volume of their voice. He talks to my cousins, teases them on facebook, argues with my uncle and seamlessly and easily became one of them. I know I envy Dear Husband’s family respect of privacy and their so sweet and nice way of trying to make things easy for everyone and not inconvenience by staying somewhere else. But I know without a doubt that when my kitchen is as busy as a bus stop with people yelling and laughing and elbows are digging everywhere and we are all driving each other crazy and being insanely loud, that if they were in a hotel across town, I would miss them terribly.

CHEATING AS AN UNIVERSAL REASON FOR MURDER

I had an amazing conversation with some of the women I know today. After a few minutes of talking about marriage, relationships and how hard it is to keep the spark alive after decades, we got to talk about cheating.

Some said it was, regardless of who does the cheating, definitely something that both people are at fault for, one half because it does the cheating and the other half because it obviously not satisfying the other person in some level. Some of us said “fuck that” and agreed that the cheater is at fault for not doing the right thing and choosing to rub one off instead of confronting the issue head one.

What we all seemed to agreed one, regardless of who we thought the fault laid on, was the fact that we would all serve jail time happily if catching a cheating husband. There is something to be said about the fact that a group of women completely different background, nationalities (Russia, Germany, New York and Colombia) and upbringing could all agree on finding it perfectly excusable to cause bodily harm to the man that promised love eternal and gives us a VD instead.

What is it about cheating that makes our blood boil? Is it the betrayal? Is it the sex? Is it the possibility of them loving someone else? Or the fact that they lied? In a poll I found online women apparently thought it was worse for a man to fall in love with another woman, even if they didn’t act on it, than to actually have sex with someone they don’t care about.

As a child of a cheating man-whore I find infidelity unacceptable. I understand that monogamous relationships are difficult and maybe is childish of me to expect eternal fidelity but I would rather be dumped, divorced and never again thought of than to face Dear Husband telling me he cheated.

How do people recover from that? More importantly how do people walk away unharmed after confessing to it? I am not an aggressive person, I have never been on a fight, I have never caused anyone pain, I have never contemplate harming someone. But if Dear Husband told me one day he cheated, or worse I found out on my own, I don’t think I would be responsible for my actions (pay attention Dear Husband!)

So I guess murderous rage in face of adultery is another thing I have in common with my fellow Gringas and women everywhere.

MEN BEWARE!

MORE RELIGIOUS STUFF

I know I am probably going to step on a lot of toes writing this post but here I go.

My cousin, who is an even bigger flaming liberal than I am (and that’s saying something) has this blog war going on with another girl who shall remain nameless. Apparently the girl who is a devout Christian goes hunting and was excited about killing Bamby’s mom last week or so. My cousin is a devout liberal animal rights advocate; these two couldn’t be more incompatible if they tried!

As the blog war developed I couldn’t help but go visit this girl’s website. She is an innocent looking 21 year old newlywed whose entire blog is dedicated to her life as a servant of her Lord Jesus Christ and all that.

Honestly is like visiting a foreign country when I go to blogs like that because I have never really been exposed to extremely religious people until I came here because is too much effort to care and back at home the most stout Christian doesn’t give that much of a damn. I truly love to see these blogs because it uncovers a whole different world of people and costumes, beliefs and rules that I have never heard before.

This girl for example had a 6” rule. She was not allowed to be any closer to her boyfriend, then fiancé then husband, than 6 inches. Her own dad put her engagement ring on because her fiance wasn't allowed to touch her. Anything closer than 6 inches I guess was the road to perdition. In her own words “hand holding leads to hugging, hugging to kissing and kissing to fornication”.

That’s just a word I love, fornication. It has such an ugly connotation, so biblical, so strong, one of the few words left in that book that hold any strength. Adultery doesn’t mean shit anymore, neither does sodomy nor sodomite but fornication remains a word that still holds a little sinful tingle.

We Hispanics have a problem with rules, regulations and chains of command. We always want to see the president of the company, not a manager. We are used to rules standing there for only those who want to respect them and to be broken by those who are smarter and decide not to. Back at home is common for everyone to run the red lights after midnight, pay off the cops, drive without insurance, pay under the table to get your driver’s license even though you have never been behind the wheel of a car, we mooch off the cable of the neighbor, etc. I know that about us. We are laid back to the point of indifference when it comes to things like that because I guess we need to concentrate on bigger problems like money, rent, unemployment, crime rate, education, medicine, etc. Rules like those are easy to ignore when bigger things are going on which I believe also leaks into our religious life. It’s just too damn hard to be everything the bible expects one to be (although I never, in all my years in Catholic School, read anything about 6 inches of separation).

In my humble opinion life is sometimes hard enough to impose in ourselves rules that are completely unnecessary. I think my own principles, standards and simple logic would be enough to keep me from fornicating with every man I have ever dated. I never needed a 6 inch rule to keep me from dropping my panties and spreading my legs. So why this devout Christian feels the need to keep such a distance from the man that is to become her husband I will never understand. Does she think she is going to be struck by lust in a moment of weakness and fornicate his brains out one day at a church picnic?

Aren’t life’s challenges enough to keep life interesting? Why make it harder on yourself? Why miss all those kisses, hugs, cuddles, hand holdings and ass grabbing that makes the beginning of a relationship so damn sweet? Why curve the impulse of tonguing your boyfriend goodnight? Even if it is to push him away later because you need to save yourself.

It’s so damn hard to be good. In the immortal words of Albus Dumbledore (who makes more sense to me than the bible) “Difficult times are coming, times in which we must all choose between what is right and what is easy”. Almost everything that is right is also difficult. I have discovered that to be an unequivocal truth, right along with “everything that is delicious is either fattening or sinful”. So if being good and trying not to gossip is hard, if being good and trying to not be mean is hard, if being good and trying not to judge is hard, if being good and trying simpley to BE good is already hard, why make it any harder?

So I’ll continue to eat meat in Good Friday. I’ll continue to cuss, I’ll continue believing in woman’s inherent right to choose abortion, I will continue to believe in a man’s right to love a man and choose to share that love in whichever way makes them happy. I will continue to believe that whichever superior power is out there, it would want me to DO good, BE good and live my life to the fullest.

To quote another “blasphemous” book:

"I stopped believing there was a power of good and a power of evil that were outside us. And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are." — Philip Pullman (The Amber Spyglass)