Marriage and Fear

So I've been watching a lot of this recently. Don't ask, just blame TP. But hey, at least there is a queer subplot that is just that -- a subplot and the queer characters have all the normal problems as everyone else (if magic addiction is normal). Anyway, in the sixth season there is an episode where Xander is going to marry Anja (former vengeance demon) except a demon comes back to stop the marriage and poses as Xander as an old man and shows him images of himself and Anja sixty years down the line and how miserable they will have made each other. It freaked me out a little bit and not the least because while I was watching it today I was also working on my wedding present for Sister, Esq. and her partner, and thinking about Sister, MD and her new love, and thinking about TP and me. (Have I mentioned that maybe I should just think a little less?)

I have a lot to say about the politics of marriage and long term monogamous pairbonding. I've been meaning to respond to Mamita's post for almost three weeks at the point, and not being able to find a way to crystallize everything I have to say about marriage into one piece.

A lot of what I have to say is about an idyllic vision of queer politics and poverty reduction, and really hard core theory that I love and can totallly have a dork-fest about. But there is also a scared little girl who really wants to believe that two people can know that they love eachother and decide to make that work, and lively mostly happily for a very long time. This is the same little girl who grew up knowing that that wasn't really a possibility and needing to choose between deciding that people who love eachother can make each other unhappy and believing that her parents had never loved each other, or that one or both of them is inherently unloveable. Of course, really I'm scared that all of these things are true and true about me, and I'm scared that I won't be able to figure it out, and that not figuring it out will be the big way I fail at my life.

I've been avoiding really thinking about marriage for a long time. I just theorize about it, but this fall, when Sister, Esq. and her partner tie the knot I'll have to actually deal with the viscera of it -- this is not a task that I'm looking forward to particularly. I'll write more about this soon, I really do want to lay out some of the theory stuff sometime soon. Hold me to account on this, while this space is totally bizarre in my life, part of the reason that's the case is because it's so very separate and that's a good thing.

Enough babbling for now.