Friday, July 10, 2009

The Pot or The Kettle?

I love my dad. A bajillion times ten. He's my buddy and has been since I was little.

BUT

There is one thing about his personality that drives all of us girls INSANE -one second he's on a high, and you say one thing to topple him the teensiest bit, one joke that went too far or was misinterpreted, one comment that came out sounding a bit too harsh and he plummets to rock bottom. My sister and I were bemoaning this fact over dishes last night. "What set him off?" we wondered. "Why does he do this?" "It pisses me off!!" I said..

THEN

Later that night I'm talking to Jam. Haven't talked to him in over a day, which considering we email at least once a day and talk once a night, is a lot for us. We exchange pleasantries, I get all excited about the 15th months til our wedding, ready to tell him about the progress I made yesterday on churches, invites, decorating ideas and even a rehearsal lunch/dinner when he says "Oh yeah, that website, by the way, my family will not want their names on it."

Huh?

My sister has been designing a fantastic wedding website mock-ups. It's nowhere on the internet, just for clarification, and she asked for his family's last names in an email. Now as someone who gets privacy and the internets, I know that we can really limit the people who see this site - and seriously, will the guests not know Jam's family's last names? On the other hand, I guess I "get" it. I guess they want privacy. I am still kind of mystified who/what they want privacy from but then again, I air my laundry out on a somewhat anonymous but detail-oriented blog, so how am I to know/judge. I tell my sister, she takes care of it. Even though this thing is still in its infant stages. But may as well nip it in the bud before there's drama, because one of the 'maids might've freaked too. Basically we didn't think about this, Jam called us out. FINE.

What bothered me so much was the high I was on was completely destroyed. Gone. I didn't even want to talk to him anymore. Was it because he asked me to change that stuff? No. It was because I barely got a word in edgewise before something critical came out of his mouth. It kind of makes you not want to discuss your other plans, you know? Plus Jamaal is at a point in school where I feel as though he'll snap if I mention one more wedding thing. Hell, I get sick of talking about it sometimes. I want it to be simple, but I also want it to go smoothly and enjoy the day, thus this planning ahead. I feel like I'm doing it entirely alone though (as opposed to with my fiance - my friends and family are awesome helpers, but it would be nice to have the FI involved) and when I do this stuff all I can think is that Jamaal doesn't really care at all and that I shouldn't even bother. But then I think "no, I'm doing this for me, for my own satisfaction because I want things to be beautiful and memorable" which is entirely true. It just sucks that I get negative feedback without any positive and that any wedding-oriented discussion seems like a burden.

Oh well.

After we hung up, I started to cry.
THEN I realized - I AM my Dad. Like the spitting freakin' image.
I groaned at the thought of this, because it was so true. F*ck.
Then I got over it and went to sleep. At this point nothing is worth that much feeling.
10 months down the road and we find ourselves at this point, THEN we need to have a discussion about whether this is even worth it. Hopefully it won't come to that. Because if I have to listen to anymore "This is why we eloped" or "this is why we did xyz at our wedding" or "I knew this would happen to you" I will FLIP OUT! I am doing what I want and liking it - I just have to get the other half on board. Boo effing hoo.
UGH.

2 comments:

everything and nothing said...

Dude, like the only thing I have realized through therapy is that it is the similarities to ourselves, not the differences, that are usually most irritating in the people we love.
Except, you know, when it's not.

Al said...

TOTALLY. I can't believe it took me 27 years to realize this. ha ha.