So, as you know if you read my last post, I am at my family reunion. Once, every four years, my whole family meets in one place for a week. It may not seem complicated if you have a small family, but as I was informed today, my family has grown from my great grandmother to 153 people. We have family in Spain, England, Mexico, Peru and all over the United States.
I always look forward to the family reunion until about a week before where I freak out and start to concentrate on the clothes I am going to bring, if I've gained weight or not, and what my personal and professional life is like. From what I understand from the rest of my cousins, I am not the only one.
However, once you get here it is always a good time. I arrived yesterday (more about my cat's freaking out road trip experience later) and the first event was the welcome party. Being a Cuban/Spanish family, the kisses on the cheek are expected, the challenge is remembering if its one or two kisses. The party was a good time and the keg didn't last an hour with the sheer volume of people here.
Today was a bit more challenging. The first event of the day was the Catholic Sunday mass. The fact that I don't believe in God or organized religion makes no difference to my dad or my mom who says we go "to support your father". I support my dad in a lot of things, this particular event is a place to see and be seen. My family already thinks I'm going to hell as I don't pray on Thanksgiving or Christmas nor do I cross myself just to fit in. Although it seems out of the ordinary, this is my way of respecting THEM. Why fake something that means so much to them. Isn't it better I stay quiet and starving until its OK to eat?
Church is a whole different ball game for me. Going to a giant Catholic mass makes me extremely uncomfortable. I don't know what to say or do other than to be quiet and sit and stand when everyone else does. I cant help but to look around and think about mass brainwashing. Don't get me wrong, I am fully respectful of every one's beliefs. If religion helps you, that is FINE with me. The environment however is just something I don't understand.
We were in one church in Hilton Head, SC and there were 300+ people there. When I see that, I think about all the small churches in all the big cities and small towns locally, nationally, then globally. I think about what an easy way it is to spread disease. I think its also easy to spread a message that could be wrong. Like if every Catholic priest decides this Sunday we are going to speak about how being gay is a sin, the consequences and the outreach it would have in an hour globally is mind boggling.
It doesn't help that churches make me laugh. I get nervous and bored and I always find something funny. Last family reunion was a cousin of mine playing with his shoelaces strategically that I found so funny I was asked to step outside. This reunion it was a kid in front of me that was farting every few minutes. It was the terrible smell, mixed with the tear gas quality of the farts, and with my extreme immaturity for fart humor that did me in. I was laughing so hard I just started uncontrollably crying and had to go to the bathroom to calm myself down. Even my dad next to me was using his hat to wave away the drift wind from this kid's ass it was so terrible.
After church we had our welcome brunch. The brunch is always awesome because a PowerPoint is prepared and it covers our family"s history which inevitably always has the room in tears by the end.
After the brunch starts the real family reunion. My great grandmother had 6 kids. Those 6 kids all had kids and so on. The original 6 were given different team colors. My grandmother and her descendants (my dad, aunts, uncles and cousins) make up the blue team. So the water gun fights begin. Have a blue call someone from the red team and invite them out to lunch. The minute their door opens, everyone is soaked. Its family rivalry at its best.
We ended the night at tonight's sing-a-long outside, kinda drunk, talking to my cousins about how their kids are asking about the sex talk and how to go about the conversation. All good times.
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