Home for the Holidays

Yesterday was the five year anniversary of the night I met my husband.

In the last five years, we've built a life together that I love. We moved in together, got engaged, figured out who'd cook and clean and how the bills would get paid, sent MJC back to business school, had five jobs between us, moved three times, got out of debt, learned how to buy a house, took on a mortgage together, adopted a dog and are growing a person. This will be our first holiday season as a family of four.

Our first Thanksgiving was spent apart, he flew home to his family and my family flew to LA. My family spent that Thursday at Dee's house. My dad was at Starbucks most of the day using their Wifi and my mom, my aunt, Dee and I all spent the day in the kitchen having glass after glass of sherry as we basted the bird.

Before dinner, I called my new love to wish him a Happy Thanksgiving. Looking back I think it was the first moment my mother-in-law decided not to like me. MJC recounts my phone call with fondness and a healthy respect for his own sense of humor. He'd been seated at dinner - a dinner his mother had likely been cooking by herself for three days and had been telling her son about for three weeks before that, when his cell rang. MJC had changed my ringtone to "Sexual Healing", a decision which I'm humiliated by even now and even though I did not do it. After letting Marvin Gaye croon through his pocket for what seemed like seven rings to me, MJC answered his phone in a fit of giggling. That ringtone was assigned to his new not even girlfriend yet- I did not even know it until that moment- and yet I was already on thin ice with my future mother-in-law.

The next Thanksgiving we spent together at her home. I remember walking into her kitchen, having just arrived in town, and her looking me up and down with squinting eyes then grabbing her son by the back of the neck and kissing him right on his lips. She pressed her forehead to his and told him she'd missed him. MJC looked squirmy like a kid about to wipe a kiss from his cheek. I watched.

My future M.I.L mentioned 586 times that weekend that she was glad to have her boys both home with her where they belonged, but it did not confront me until the next day when MJC was in the kitchen, grazing through his 4th helping of Chex Mix. His mother slinked behind him and like a blanket over his shoulders or an old lover, she wrapped herself around him from behind and kissed him on his neck. Thankfully he recoiled. I wondered my place.

I was pleasantly surprised to receive a voicemail from my mother-in-law this week - a healthy, normal response to a family member reaching out.

She'd called to check and see how my doctor's appointment went on Tuesday. I felt happy and hopeful that perhaps baby Orange would act as a much needed salve to our often bumpy relationship. Since the first time I met her, I wanted things to go well. I wanted her to love me. But despite my good intentions and I assume hers, things always seem to unravel and I'm not sure why.

I called back I thanked her for her call. "What did the doctor say?" she asked quickly. I explained my blood pressure was very low and I'd been nauseated and dizzy consistently for the past 15 weeks. "But the baby is fine, right?" she asked eagerly.

"Yes," I replied, feeling a little like she viewed me more as a surrogate than her daughter-in-law. "The doctor did not ask about the baby, I mean there is not a concern about the baby right now, they were more concerned about me for right now."

She let out a big deep sigh. "Ahhh! So the baby is fine? Well that is a relief!" Wait a second, no one was every worried about the baby. Baby Orange is super fantastic, living the good life in a thick fat womb that's cutting off the blood supply to mama's brain.

I stayed quiet.

"I mean, all that *really* matters is the baby, " she gracefully recovered. Where did that sweet concerned mother-in-law who called to inquire about my health and well-being go? Maybe I am taking this too personally?

"Yes," I lied. "Of course that is ALL that matters."

She started to make a word, I don't know what it would have been because she swiftly changed the subject. "So you'll be on your own for Thanksgiving..." This was a loaded question, her claws were coming out.

"Yes. I'll be hosting this year." (A fact she's already aware of.)

"And for Christmas..." She trailed off for me to jump in, hoping perhaps my answer would be new. Between her son and I, we've now told her three different times we will not be traveling "home" for Christmas. Before we told her we told my brother-in-law, who seemed concerned and who's first response was a very skeptical, "Have you told mom yet?" The first time she heard the news she cried. Not to put too fine a point on this, but her home was never "home" for me and it's no longer "home" for her 3 adult children who all live in their own homes with their respective partners. Her son, my husband, has not lived at her home for 13 years. We both explained gingerly and sweetly that we will not be able to afford the plane tickets and the dog boarding to fly "home" and that we'd like to spend our first Christmas in our actual home.

"Yep!" I replied chirpily, "We'll be here too."

Her voice went cold. "Will you even get a tree?" (veiled disdain)

"Of course!" I sang cheerfully.

"And will your mother be coming down for the birth?" This conversation was disintegrating quickly. I always know were in for trouble when she inquires about my mother like she is the other woman. I tell her the truth, that I don't know. Her question makes me feel the same way I felt when the day after our engagement when she asked me about our wedding colors- woefully unprepared to impress her. Please just give me a chance to experience this, think through this, enjoy this, before you start hounding me with questions.

Since that first Thanksgiving, my M.I.L has explained carefully many times what her Mikey likes and how I should take care of him, as though nothing I do is as good as what she does. Only, I'm not trying to take the spot as MJC's mom. It's really the LAST thing I would want to be to him.

What I want to be is who I am- who we are now.

The open house flier from the house we ended up buying up on our fridge. I see it every day and I think about the night we first saw what would be our house. I just knew it was ours. MJC was not sure at first, but I'd already started playing little movies of what our life would be in every room. Six months later, when I look around at our home I feel proud and happy and safe.

I love the pieces of us that blend together into our. I love our life in our home and our home is here. This is where we both belong.