Another Love Letter ... I know ...ugh.

So. I'm at home tonight and I'm obsessively checking email and the blog to see if anyone has checked in (Ann? You still out there?) and I get a Facebook message from Erica's dad's girlfriend Sandi. (Yes. With an i. Don't hold it against her.)

And I watch this goofy video and I have a huge moment.

You know, so much of The Princess' blogging involves the "unacceptable" version of Mother that she ended up with. And just recently I was whining, "Why didn't I get a good family? My mom's nuts and my dad is absentee. It's not fair."

Then tonight I got this video and I realized. That I did get get the good family. I have Erica's family.

When E and I first started dating, her BFF Strong said to me, "You don't know how lucky you are. I've always envied the person who would end up with Erica. Because when you get Erica, you get her family."

Well, tonight it really hit me. Since E and I got together, I have struggled to understand her family. I've been accustomed to a family that is full of secrets and hidden personalities. My cousin had AIDS -- circa 1988 -- and his mother allowed my mom to change this chest tube he had ... without EVER mentioning that he was sick with what was known, at that time, as the incurable gay disease.

Know why they didn't talk about it? Because my aunt worked for the county school system and she was scared she'd lose her job. My high school still has segregated proms. So. You can imagine their view on gay butt sex.

Anyway. What hit me tonight was, this goofy video is such an example of how the relationship between E and her family and the one between me and mine is so vastly different. And it is huge, for this naive Georgia hick, that I can be exactly who I am. Because Erica's parents ... and their current partners ... accept me. And love me. And allow me to be who and what I am.

I think this may be the reason Erica and I are together. Since we became girlfriends, we've talked about our backgrounds and the fact that they are so hugely different. I think she and I were put into this world, in part, to experience the familial relationships we had and then to be exposed to polar opposites so that we both appreciate where we come from and where we've come to.