A few of the things I've wanted to say

There are reasons I have been very vague about anything going on in family life especially over the past year are so. I'm just vague enough so you know I have reasons, I just can't talk about them. I've thought about writing a therapeutic blog for a while to blow off steam, thinking if I wrote it, I'd feel better.

So, in middle of blogging about Bachelor in Paradise and all the drama the cast creates for themselves, I've also been working on this post tonight. Last week I didn't think the show could be anymore edited or scripted together. Then, something comes up in actual real life that makes me believe that reality TV really is reality.

Each week I blog, "no one falls in love this fast." Eh, maybe they can. It may just take a certain kind of people. I know some people like that. They are desperate to find love, or what they think is love. Some people just have to chase that in life. They don't know how not to.

But this blog isn't about The Bachelor or any of its spin-offs. And what do I know, especially about relationships?

So, my brother's getting married. Again. Third time's a charm? I guess they think so. He said there wouldn't be a third time, but never say never.

I have told a handful of people about this. My friends that know about him always dating someone new always have a certain question they ask first. "Where did he meet this one?"

I kid you not when I answer, "FarmersOnly.com."

To add insanity to the madness, it's all the more appropriate that the officiant will be his 18 year-old farm hand who has already gotten his paperwork. I disclosed this to a couple of people who knew said 18 year-old and they looked at me like I professed I was going on an all monkey meat diet.

Yes, my friends, I am serious. Even the writers of The Bachelor franchise couldn't make this stuff up.

When I heard this news a couple of weeks ago, I was in middle of a deep, painful emotional wave. A hormonal surge of the worst kind. It was in middle of a two week period where I broke into tears regularly. I can't tell you how many times I lost it about this or that.

This was also in middle of the height of the whole Facebook 7-day spouse challenge. I was in the depths of loneliness. As I kept seeing certain photos in my feed, the pain of being alone literally hurt and at times even took my breath away. That's the frame of mine I was in when I heard the news.

So, half of me was having a pity party for my lonely self while the other half was logically ticked over the whole thing.

If you knew half the drama that has surrounded my brother over the years, you get where I am coming from. Even in middle of my mood, I was thinking:

HERE. WE. GO. AGAIN. 

I was thinking a number of other things too. Just when I finally didn't have to deal with who had what kids on what calendar year in order to have our family Christmas gathering. Of course, I have nothing pulling me away, so of course, I can just go along with it whether I want to or not. I guess that's a whole other side of my selfish fit.

Other thoughts surrounded my nieces. What this means for the one who lives with him. Even though she's excited, what does this mean for her long term? On the other side, this seals the deal on the older one every coming back around.

Oh, the tears I have cried over her the past year. The one I was so very close to before a little over a year ago when she cut all of her dad's family out of her life after being right in the middle of it from the day she was born. I can't even speak her name aloud without emotion flowing. That emotionally hurts to the core too.

Now, being removed from the emotional aspects of it, I still find it all completely ridiculous on the logical level. There's some moral thoughts too.

Several days after that, I was dragging my laundry through my house when the phone rang. My dad asked me if I was screening calls. I was actually just trying to get gravy off of a good shirt and trying to get my chores done. (This also reminds me I meant to start my dishwasher a few minutes ago.) No, I was no screening my calls, but I began to wish I had.

Dad tells me not to schedule a couple of the craft shows we had already talked about doing. I thought we were back on to an unrelated debate we had the week before. I told him I had indeed already taken care of one. When he sounded increasingly annoyed, I asked, "what's going on now?"

"Brian is getting married sometime between X and Z."

"Well, I did it the morning before anyone knew there was an engagement, and besides I thought there weren't any plans yet. You can't get upset with me about it."

Oh, how life revolves around the youngest child regardless of age. Don't get mad at me and accuse me of things when I haven't done a thing wrong. When I told him several days later I had a friend who would help out of the big day fell on the same day of an event we already paid for, he said, "don't you think you might want to be there."

"Not really."

"I wouldn't think there was a really about it."

"Ok. No, no I don't."

So long a story, but he doesn't understand my coldness on the whole subject. Mom does.

So many things not said here.

Now, I will be the first to admit I know very little about the future sister-in-law. To name five facts may indeed be hard. I may have to list knowing she has a son and a daughter as two separate items. I don't have an actual opinion of her.

Part of it is me being tacky and just not investing in new people that come and go. Experience. The other part is she doesn't speak. Other than being at the ballpark for a softball game on the same day at the same time, there has been no occasion to interact.

But I wonder about her. I wonder about anyone in the situation. I can see how a first marriage can not work out and someone gets married a second time. After that, I can't fathom how someone might think, "this time WILL be different."

Yet all of this rambling doesn't get to witty and snarky part of my blog. The part I promised.

The special day will be in mid-October. (I am deeming the week, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again week." My mother actually laughed when I told her about my name for the week. Ironically two days before that, my cousin will be getting married for the fourth time.

At 50, he would have already been a fourth time if it weren't for a freak accident in which his fourth fiance died a year and a half ago. Oh, the absolutely bizarre stories of his life. They could fill a book.

I've met his fiance. I don't know anything about her either. I think in her case, I would think, "doesn't he fall in love easily?"

A little like a contestant on The Bachelorette. 

They sent out save the dates for their reception a few weeks ago. This week the invite for the reception came. On the flip side they wrote attending was a gift to them and that they had all the household items they need. However, if you wanted to make a donation to their dream honeymoon (they just got back from Mexico in June) that they set up a Honey Fund account so that you can contribute  if you would like.

I would not like.

Side note: I'm not going to make it to the reception. I have another event that weekend. In fact, I may not make it to my brother's wedding. We're supposed to set up that night. I think I need to go check in. I told my dad the paperwork says that Friday is move in night. When I told him this, he huffily answered (based on the above "not really" I am sure) that I'd have to take X, Y and Z. To which I answer, "you can't get mad at me about this." Not my fault both fell on the same weekend. This has been decided for a while now. (I seriously think they have it worded differently this year. I don't want to have to get up at 4 AM the next morning to be in Arlington at 6 AM to be set at 8:30 AM regardless of what life-changing events are going down.)

Back to my point, my final point. Given I don't think there's a snowball's chance in a Texas summer of getting married once, I'm not getting any gifts for that. No children, no gifts for that. I think I'll just start up a fund for "I'm a single, childless person on a single income, and I want to go to Alaska." Send me on a vacation! Or, I really want to buy a house I can fix up as my own. Maybe I can start a down payment fund.

That, my friends, is sarcasm.