family history: horrorama interruptus

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Tonight my father and step-mother came over for dinner. During our meal my dad began speaking about the failure of his marriage to my mother. I had only heard my mom’s side of the story, so even though I was concerned that it was making my step-mom feel uneasy I was so absorbed in his words I did not interrupt. After my father was done with the story I went into the kitchen and my step-mom followed me to ask if I thought she was uneasy about my father’s choice of topic. “I did wonder,” I replied. She said she was completely fine with it, that it would take a lot more than that to bother her. I’m not sure I would be cool with my husband talking about old relationships at the dinner table, especially if it was about ex-wives (of which he has none, by the way). I know that my dad had only brought it up because he realized he hadn’t really talked with me about his life, but it was still a bit awkward. Interesting things I found out about my father:

  1. My dad rode across the US in a VW bus with his friend for a few months after graduating from high school.
  2. My dad decided not to go to college because my great grandmother offered all her grandchildren $500 if they didn’t go to college and my dad really wanted the money for his car hobby.
  3. My brother was not planned, contrary to popular belief. My mother insists my brother was conceived while using birth control. My father does not seem to believe this.
  4. My brother was a handful as a child (that I knew) and once my mom woke my dad from a sound sleep to say that they needed to take my brother to the hospital, to which my dad responded in his half-awakedness, “how is anyone supposed to get any sleep around here?!” My mom errupted like a volcano (Dad’s words) and they all got in the car to go to the ER.
  5. My dad and my mother divorced under very different terms than I had been led to believe.

I kind of feel it’s none of my business, but I don’t know what to do with this new information. My parents have been divorced for practically all of my life – why clear it up now? … Now I’m stuck in this spiral of re-evaluating my entire childhood. I’m supposed to be watching my horrorama and instead I’m sitting here trying to figure out if what my dad told me was true, if I am correctly interpretting what I heard tonight, if my mom has more to say on the matter. I mean, for fuck’s sake, … gah. I think I might prefer to think my dad was lying or that I never heard what he said. It’s not making me upset or mad, just confused.

So, horrorama is not so spectacular. I’ve only watched Cry_Wolf which was: Predictable. Unimaginative. Still worth my time.

One thought on “family history: horrorama interruptus”

  1. My two cents worth…

    I was very disillusioned when I got to the age of discovering all your family is basically full of shit. I wanted to crawl back to being, oh, 5 or 6 again when you think everyone is great. Both your parents will have their versions of what really happened, peppered with “emotional memory.” I’d say, ignore the past and build what you have with them now… including the rule that they don’t talk about the other one unless they are politely inquiring about the other’s health. It’s the only way we’ve been able to maintain some sanity. It was our grandparents that did this, not our parents. I thought we were going to end up with a brawl at my wedding.