It’s Thanksgiving, and ordinarily my spouse and I would be spending today with his family who live in a different state. Work schedules have prevented that this year, so we are home instead. Just the two of us and the dogs. I might visit with some friends later this afternoon, but I’m pretty comfortable hanging out in my pyjamas at the moment.
I love my in-laws, they are good people who care about and want what is best for their family. They are also deeply religious, in that prescriptive way that people from the Southern US states often are. They are not terribly progressive or open-minded. And they have no desire to be. Consequently, our relationship with them sometimes feels strained, particularly during our holiday visits.
Before moving to Oklahoma, I did not truly know what it was to feel the need to bite my tongue when it came to expressing my opinions. I spent my entire adult life in Liverpool, surrounded by like-minded people. Progressives, liberals, socialists. And those labels did not carry stigma. Liverpool felt like a safe and welcoming place for me in many ways. I could speak my mind, discuss my politics, and generally there would be no one closeby who disagreed.
Now I live in semi-rural Oklahoma, married into a deeply religious family, oh and abortions have been banned. I see Trump flags and bumper stickers daily. When local children marched through our small town in support of the BLM movement, armed adult white men lined the streets in the name of protecting the storefronts and keeping the peace. And they were praised for it, meanwhile my stomach churned.
There are certain arguments I choose to avoid with my acquaintances and neighbors. And the same goes for my in-laws. Yes, I could tell them that I have other relationships that are important to me, besides the ones I have with their child. I could tell them that despite the appearance of my heteronormative marriage, I am not straight. I could tell them that I don’t believe in any God, and that their thoughts and prayers are absolutely meaningless to me. I could tell them that I never feel comfortable around them, because I can’t be my authentic self – and that theirs is the last place where that is true.
But I really wonder what it would gain. The only time I have ever challenged them was in relation to the preferred pronouns of a teenage family member. The response I received was ‘we’re simple country people and we’ll call people like we’ve always called them’, and that they didn’t ‘see the point’. The child in question was then almost completely ignored throughout that Christmas visit.
Now, I wouldn’t object if they decided not to know me if I ever introduced them to my authentic self, but it would be difficult for my spouse, who has come to rely on me as a buffer when we visit them. So, I play nice, smile, bow my head when they say grace. All of that. That’s how I keep the peace. They aren’t outspoken bigots, so that helps.
My opinions and my authenticity are very important to me. But I’ve learned that keeping my life a peaceful one is important too. I have some wonderful people in my inner circle on both sides of the Atlantic, who know everything there is to know about me. I live my life in the open when it comes to my co-workers, people I deal with in the day-to-day. If I have a date at my house, I do not worry what the neighbors might think if they see me kissing them in my driveway. And my own family knows what I’m about. So, this one last, temporary corner of veiled secrets for the benefit of the greater good seems manageable.
Fat and Slutty 