Akward

Hum... I just had a phone call with my father. He's inviting me for my birthday in one week for my birthday. We were chatting a bit about that, and then about my sister's new boyfriend, and one thing leading to another, he asked "so, and you, what about sex? you know, fucking is great and very important in one's life. Are you working on that? we never hear anything from you!" I was well uncomfortable, thinking that it was great to be on the phone and actually not in front of him, and said that I was going ok in this area and he said "yeah, I hope so! you know, if you want, Anna [my stepmother] can give you advice, if you want to keep a girl you have to satisfy her!" oh god... it was one of these moments in life when you wish you were deaf! I tried to change the subject, but he noticed and said "yeah well, in any case I hope you're not turning gay, it seems to be quite fashionable these times" and started to joke about that, great...

The thing is he's going to retire next year, and he wants me to marry and have children so it can keep him busy. He loves to take care of children, and he's really cool with them, like making toys for them, etc. But I'll turn 23 in a week, and even if I was straight I wouldn't like to have children in the middle of my studies and get married! I said that once, and he said he would pay for anything if I marry and have children, at any time, and that it's better to have them young. I do not doubt about that, but that's not really the problem. The more time passes and the more he's putting pressure on me about that, and I know I won't be able to maintain the suspense forever... I just hope that I can finish my studies before telling him, because, considering the way both him and my stepmother acted with Frank (the son of my stepmother's sister, who is gay), I'm not really sure how they will take the piece of news :/

I'm sure it's going to be a family drama, on both my father and mother side. For the moment I'm the best son/grand-son/brother/nephew ever, who has good grades, is handsome, is well tidy, and is going out with a very attractive girl (they all think I'm going out with Maria, my best friend, because I talk about her a lot, even though I already told them we were not dating) and I'm affraid they would be ashamed to have a gay boy in the family. Maybe I'm totally wrong, but maybe I'm not and it scares me. On the other side, the more I wait, the more they are planning my wedding with Maria, the christening of my children, and a standard beautiful life like in the photo-albums.

When I hear them speaking of me, or talk with them about my life, it is as if they were telling the story of another guy. It's funny in a way to hear them telling me how I'm supposedly living, and planning my life, and on the other side to live my real life, and imagine how I want it to be in the future. It's like reading two completely different books. It's a bit schizophrenic... It's also surprising how they can imagine that everything is and will be perfect considering how messed up their respective lives were. Every family is messed up, for it is the destiny of human life no to be as one think it should be, and every family has his own issues. In my family the main issue is the weight of the secrets. Nobody talks, and as my grand-mother say in swedish everytime something appears to be going wrong "everything is fine". But it's not, and everyone is hiding behind secrets, and you can feel it, although you don't know about them.

Maybe I'm bringing some wood in the fire by keeping my secrets, and keeping this virtual perfect life going, and this weight will crush us all one day as in the end of a Strindberg play, but I'm not sure either that braking the rule of the secret would liberate all of us from this burden. Sometimes, I just wish that I could fly away, settle in a new place, and make tabula rasa. But you've got to live with what you have. As long as the situtation stays the same, it's ok. I'm just affraid because I know it won't last forever. But who knows, maybe it will be a relief. Let's prepare for the worse, and hope for the best!