As with any politically-charged post, we request that your keep any dialogue civil. Thanks!
It's safe to say this recent election has brought increased tension to the (often already-dysfunctional) dynamics in many families throughout the nation. As the weeks go on, many of you (especially on the not-winning side of the election results) may now find yourselves feeling lost at sea in turbulent political and emotional waters.
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And if your shipmates in this metaphor are the family members with whom you most butt heads, it can feel like there's mutiny afoot. Your Uncle Bob is boring holes in the ship's hull. Grandma is chucking the life jackets overboard, laughing maniacally, and swigging rum straight from the bottle. Your in-laws are prying up the wood planks of the deck and burning them to keep warm.
Oh, and all your seemingly-mutinous shipmates?
They are invited to your upcoming wedding.
They may be blocked from your Facebook account, but they are already very-much-invited to the wedding.
The wedding you began planning BEFORE you were considering aiming your sinking craft toward the snowy shores of Canada, paddling desperately with all the strength you could muster. They may be blocked from your Facebook account, but they are already very-much-invited to the wedding. Even if your invitations have not gone out yet, these relatives know they're invited.
Your ship is sailing not toward Canada, but toward a shadowy realm where you lay awake at night visualizing drunken family members making hurtful toasts, somehow managing to insult all the things that make you different in one fell swoop:
Blah-blah VEGAN blah-blah-blah WEIRDOS, blah-blah WHEN YOU GONNA HAVE SOME BABIES? Blather-blather, TOOK YOU TWO LONG ENOUGH, blah-blah-blah BUT WHY BUY THE COW… AMIRIGHT? Blah-blah HEY, IT'S YOUR LAST CHANCE TO RUN AWAY, BUDDY! Blah-de-blah-blah. Blah-blah CRAZY FEMINIST blah-blah LIBERAL blah-blah-de-blah. Blah-blah NOT A “REAL” WEDDING BECAUSE IT'S NOT IN A CHURCH, blah-blah: BUT-WE-LOVE-YOU-GUYS-ANYWAY-CONGRATULATIONS-MAKE-MARRIAGE-GREAT-AGAIN…
You watch your mind building these scary stories. It's odd: these markers of your “otherness” shouldn't necessarily feel linked to something as large and impersonal as the election.
“But no,” you remind yourself, “NO.”
The personal is the political, is the personal, is the political, is the…
Suddenly, you're Googling “wedding security guards” and “security guard prices” and “female security guards,” because wouldn't that just stick in their craws. You permit yourself a bit of delicious fantasy, imagining the offending family member's words being met with boos and jeers, your hip and heroic friends swarming into a small mob to chuck the drunken toaster out on his ear, like some shabby vagabond who's wandered into an upscale bar with empty pockets and a loud mouth.
You wonderful hopefully if there is any way to pepper in enough liberal buzzwords on your wedding website and invitation wording to somehow scare them off, to draw a line in the sand. To send a clear message:
THESE ARE OUR VALUES
and
THESE VALUES ARE ABOUT MORE THAN “POLITICS”
and
WE RESPECT THE EQUALITY OF ALL PERSONS AS A BASIC HUMAN RIGHT AND IF YOU CANNOT UNDERSTAND THAT YOU SHOULD PROBABLY NOT COME TO OUR WEDDING.
Googling: “How to reference the Bill of Rights on a wedding invitation.”
Wondering: “How best can we invoke the principles of marriage equality and LGBTQ rights and humanitarian outreach and religious freedom throughout all of our ceremony wording?”
Daydreaming: “Just wait until they see that the favors are donation cards reading, ‘a gift has been made in your name to Planned Parenthood' (insert diabolical chuckle here).
These thoughts, fears, and fantasies wash over you in waves. Ever since the election, you've been wearing less eye makeup to work, in case you start crying in your car while listening to the news. You are a person who listens to the news in the car now. It's a good way to make the most of your time and stay informed.
You never used to be the kind of the person who listened to the news in your car, or listened to the news very much at all.
You think about that a lot now.
You sit down and you write.
You know that, right now, however jumbled it may seem, this is your truth.
You write about all of it: the election, the wedding, family, the future, your values, your beliefs, your fears. The way they all jostle together into the same crowded corners of your mind, forming unlikely links and threads that run from one seemingly disconnected idea to the next, until you start wishing you had spent the last several years learning to meditate like you always said you wanted to.
You know that, right now, however jumbled it may seem, this is your truth.
These connections resonate for you, and they will resonate for some other people too.
You realize that this is a good time to stop and admit: you don't really know what your goal or purpose is in writing this post. Is this article a question or request for advice? Is it creative non-fiction (and oh, how you WISH it were fiction)? Will Offbeat Bride even publish this? Will the more-divided-than-ever-interwebs respond to your post with kindness or cruelty, identification or negation?
You decide that you like the uncertainty of the whole thing.
That you do know what you're writing, and why.
You read back over your post once more, and then fill out the article submission form.
You send out your tiny signal.
Your flare goes up, and it's seen by another marooned craft floating out on the choppy waters of weddings and family and fears. It's seen by all the other lonely ships, by the captains fighting hopelessness and scurvy, fighting the fear that the mutineers will overtake them in the end.
You wave to the other ships' captains in the darkness.
And while you can't be certain, you think you see them wave back.
