Saturday, September 24, 2005
Ebony and Irony
Sometimes, it's easy to forget how absolutely bazaar some aspects of my life really are until a conversation with someone outside the family leaves them stunned, jaws agape, sometimes speechless. They take a few seconds to think, then they chuckle like I just gave them the punchline to a poorly conceived (or delivered) joke, and wait for me to say, "Just kidding!"
Although I'm a very imaginative person, even I would never make up a story so rich in kooky details as mine! No one would buy it!
In speaking to my co-worker at the gym where I held one of four part-time jobs last year while attending graduate school full-time and raising four children, it happened! I was telling her that because the middle of my three older brothers is on his 10th marriage, I have at some point had 14 sisters-in-law. The newest in my growing collection of these is Jin (pronounced "Jean") from China, who my youngest brother met on the Internet an inappropriately short time after the death of his wife of 25 years from ovarian cancer. He had decided that American women are too independent and don't believe in submissiveness, and that's not what he wanted this time around. He wanted a good, submissive woman, so he met, fell in love, visited (in China) this 40-something-year-old woman, proposed to her and married her. After a 24-month courtship/marriage, the paperwork was finalized and she flew to this country for the first time to join my brother in his love nest in Ashland, Alabama, just this past August.
After this strange conversation about sisters-in-law and love and marriage with my co-worker, I came home and remembered to call my brother to find out if his daughter who was soon to give birth to the child of a black man (with whom she had been in love for six or eight years) had delivered yet. I wanted to welcome the baby with a hand-made baby quilt, because quilting is one of my favorite creative outlets and has quite beautiful and practical outcomes.
When I called, my brother answered the phone in such a depressed tone, I was afraid something terrible had happened. Well, his wife had run away five days earlier. He arrived home from work to find a note telling him that she didn't want to stay here. He was completely depressed and heartbroken, and I was shocked and sad for him. I think it is an ill-conceived notion to marry outside one's own culture and socio-economic rank because of the vast differences that exist between men and women of similar culture/socio-economic ranks. Marriage is difficult enough without adding extra hardships to the mix. I'm not biased against mixed-race or mixed-culture marriages, I just think about the future arguments they'll have over everything from the grocery bill to holiday decisions. I'm sure it's very exciting though! Yikes.
Anyway, pouring through some of the details of my existence sounds like a most perfect recipe for memoir disguised as fiction! Don't you think?
Today, I received in the mail a letter from UAB about the graduation ceremony this December where I'll receive my Master's Degree in Elementary/Early Childhood Education. This will happen only two months prior to my official 20-year college reunion! Yes, in February of 2006, the University of Montevallo will be honoring the class of 1986, and I will be the youngest attendee at a mere 41 years of age. I hope that many of my friends from UM will show up, but the ones of which I'm most fond probably never graduated, and don't go to dorky functions like class reunions. So, there I'll be with all the SGA geeks, the Baptist Student Union stiffs, and the fraternity and sorority lemmings. My fellow Bohemians will be out partying (or home with their kids) just like every other Saturday night of the year.
So, why should I go? Because I look fucking GREAT, that's why! I'm in better shape than I have been since I was 17 and a naive (not for long) freshman on that beautiful campus. I want to wear a knockout "little black dress" and wear my hair long and flowing and surprise the SNOT out of everyone I see that pretty-but-chunky Rebecca has held up very well with age.
Plus, I feel like a very accomplished person having earned this Master's Degree. I was the first of my siblings to earn a Bachelor's Degree and now the first to earn a Master's. It may sound vain, but I truly feel like I'm blazing the path for the next generation of Owens children and, certainly, Montalbano children.
I have it all: marriage, four beautiful, smart children, education, job, house, and fitness! Who could ask for more? From the outside, it appears that I have everything. Only a select few know how frightened and crumbley I feel inside.
Although I'm a very imaginative person, even I would never make up a story so rich in kooky details as mine! No one would buy it!
In speaking to my co-worker at the gym where I held one of four part-time jobs last year while attending graduate school full-time and raising four children, it happened! I was telling her that because the middle of my three older brothers is on his 10th marriage, I have at some point had 14 sisters-in-law. The newest in my growing collection of these is Jin (pronounced "Jean") from China, who my youngest brother met on the Internet an inappropriately short time after the death of his wife of 25 years from ovarian cancer. He had decided that American women are too independent and don't believe in submissiveness, and that's not what he wanted this time around. He wanted a good, submissive woman, so he met, fell in love, visited (in China) this 40-something-year-old woman, proposed to her and married her. After a 24-month courtship/marriage, the paperwork was finalized and she flew to this country for the first time to join my brother in his love nest in Ashland, Alabama, just this past August.
After this strange conversation about sisters-in-law and love and marriage with my co-worker, I came home and remembered to call my brother to find out if his daughter who was soon to give birth to the child of a black man (with whom she had been in love for six or eight years) had delivered yet. I wanted to welcome the baby with a hand-made baby quilt, because quilting is one of my favorite creative outlets and has quite beautiful and practical outcomes.
When I called, my brother answered the phone in such a depressed tone, I was afraid something terrible had happened. Well, his wife had run away five days earlier. He arrived home from work to find a note telling him that she didn't want to stay here. He was completely depressed and heartbroken, and I was shocked and sad for him. I think it is an ill-conceived notion to marry outside one's own culture and socio-economic rank because of the vast differences that exist between men and women of similar culture/socio-economic ranks. Marriage is difficult enough without adding extra hardships to the mix. I'm not biased against mixed-race or mixed-culture marriages, I just think about the future arguments they'll have over everything from the grocery bill to holiday decisions. I'm sure it's very exciting though! Yikes.
Anyway, pouring through some of the details of my existence sounds like a most perfect recipe for memoir disguised as fiction! Don't you think?
Today, I received in the mail a letter from UAB about the graduation ceremony this December where I'll receive my Master's Degree in Elementary/Early Childhood Education. This will happen only two months prior to my official 20-year college reunion! Yes, in February of 2006, the University of Montevallo will be honoring the class of 1986, and I will be the youngest attendee at a mere 41 years of age. I hope that many of my friends from UM will show up, but the ones of which I'm most fond probably never graduated, and don't go to dorky functions like class reunions. So, there I'll be with all the SGA geeks, the Baptist Student Union stiffs, and the fraternity and sorority lemmings. My fellow Bohemians will be out partying (or home with their kids) just like every other Saturday night of the year.
So, why should I go? Because I look fucking GREAT, that's why! I'm in better shape than I have been since I was 17 and a naive (not for long) freshman on that beautiful campus. I want to wear a knockout "little black dress" and wear my hair long and flowing and surprise the SNOT out of everyone I see that pretty-but-chunky Rebecca has held up very well with age.
Plus, I feel like a very accomplished person having earned this Master's Degree. I was the first of my siblings to earn a Bachelor's Degree and now the first to earn a Master's. It may sound vain, but I truly feel like I'm blazing the path for the next generation of Owens children and, certainly, Montalbano children.
I have it all: marriage, four beautiful, smart children, education, job, house, and fitness! Who could ask for more? From the outside, it appears that I have everything. Only a select few know how frightened and crumbley I feel inside.
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