Like a giddy teenager

This weekend I will be meeting my boyfriend's family for the first time. I was invited to their early Christmas celebration, at his folks' home, where extended family from Northern California will be visiting. I'm so nervous, I haven't had a "meet the parents" moment in such a long time! My daughter says "they're going to love you!" which is so dang sweet. They are both helping me select my outfit. Having daughters is so awesome! They joined my boyfriend and I for our weekly Thursday night date night again last night. They are really closing that gap and welcoming him into our circle. They are getting to know him, and the fact that he gets a lot of their humor is very helpful. They've both been to his little cottage, and have been very kind and accepting at how tiny it is. As one of them said, while surveying the livingroom / kitchen / bathroom / bedroom square that it is, "it's everything you need!"

It has taken a lot of time and patience to get to this point, and it has been worth it. I had to let them feel their emotions about me being in a relationship, I had to let them express their feelings, even when they said some unpleasant things about it, and I had to respect them as much as I expect them to respect me. It has taken two years, but we are finally there.

Two years ago, when they first realized I was dating someone, they asked me about it...."Are you dating someone?"  The separation had only recently been formalized; even though they had known about the original separation event, we had been in a family state of limbo for about 9 months. Before answering, I asked them, "do you really want to know?" and then I reminded them about the time they had asked if Santa was real. At that time, I asked the same thing: "Do you really want to know? Because sometimes knowing information changes everything. And if you find out that Santa is not real, you will now have a responsibility instead of a fun tradition. So do you really want me to answer your question right now?" For Santa, no, they declined knowing. But for whether or not I was dating someone, yes, they really wanted to know. So I told them yes, I was dating someone. But this person would not be involved in their daily lives while they were still minors. This person would not be coming over to our house and hanging out with us. I kept using "this person", which caused one of them to ask me if I was dating a woman. I replied that it didn't matter, because "this person" was not going to affect their lives. She insisted that it did matter, only because she was now intrigued. I told her no, I was dating a man. The other daughter looked at her sister, and God love her, she said, "It's okay. Look at mom. When was the last time we saw her this happy? She's being responsible about it, and mom deserves this." At that point, I apologized to them both, that I had not finalized the separation from their dad nine months earlier, when it first happened, and instead I had allowed it to languish until it was almost "normal" again. This daughter said, "No, mom, we needed that time. We needed to see that you put him on notice, and he did nothing to fix this. If you had divorced him back then, we would probably be mad at you." Then she looked at me and said, "Just stop acting like a giddy teenager!"

So, two years later, and I am still feeling like a giddy teenager. And they are good with it.