Surprises

So......

Now that I've started the whole blogging thing I love that I get people telling me that it's time for me to put up a new blog. It keeps me consistent. I really am grateful for people that push me to keep going no matter how much I want to just loaf around and not do anything. Which brings me to a blog topic that is (strangely) not me complaining about something. I was going to complain about something tonight, but I really want to talk about my good fortune this evening. Pay attention folks. I'm about to say something nice. Don't get used to it cause it will probably not happen very often.

I love my in-laws. There. I said it. I do! My wife and I dated in high school and even after she went off to college and we were not together anymore, I still loved her family. During the time that I probably should have been at college, her sister was one of my best friends. I stopped by regularly at her mother's house to chat. Her father has always been someone I admired for a variety of different reasons. Even the man her sister eventually married was someone I thought was cool from the day I met him back in high school. When I did finally get to know her brother, I found out he was someone people just wanted to be around. And his wife was so much like me in a lot of respects that we didn't get along at first, but nowadays i think she's pretty all right too. In some of the darkest times in my life, I've known that there were people out there I could count on to get me through and I have always thought that I'm pretty lucky for that.

So when my wife and I eventually did rekindle our relationship after many years and get married, I got all these people attached to me for the rest of my life. And I couldn't be happier.

I spoke to my mother-in-law tonight and she asked me when I was going to post another blog. I was really kind of shocked by this. I knew she had been reading my blog. I knew the my father-in-law had been reading too. But I'd never thought that it would be something that they would anticipate. Though I never doubted their love for me as family, I'd always suspected that they kind of looked at me as kind of a bumbling oaf. I never would have figured them for appreciators of my brand of sarcastic insight. I'm pretty surprised to find out they like it.

It's not that they don't have senses of humor. Far from it. They have a great sense of humor. I say "A" great sense of humor cause I don't think I've ever heard both of them laugh at the same time. They just don't seem to find the same things funny I guess. But I'm getting off topic.

I wondered after speaking to her what it is that makes them "get" what I say in my blogs. And then I realized: I don't really know much about them. All this time I've known them (15 years. EEK!) and I still don't really know them as people, just as the parents of my wife. Heck, when I saw them last time I called one of them by their first name and it actually felt like I broke something as I've never even bothered to ask them what they would like to be called by their son-in-law. I know all about what they're like as parents but I've never stopped to contemplate the fact that parents are people too. Not mine mind you, but you get the idea.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this: Get to know your parents. Get to know your in-laws. You might just be surprised to find out that they're pretty cool. After all, you and your spouse had to get it from somewhere right?