Explanations...

So the story I wrote yesterday I posted to Facebook with a disclaimer that "any resemblance to living family members was purely intentional" which led to some confusion that the conversation actually happened. So I want to clear it up.

Totally a fictionalized conversation. It came about because we kept reading all of these stories about how to avoid conflict at holiday dinners, and of course the number one suggestion was to avoid politics. It made me laugh because Christopher and I talk politics all the time. We mostly agree so it rarely leads to conflict. Sometimes it does, I'm a little more conservative than he is and I'm also more about keeping the peace if I can than he is. I know, right? That lets you know how progressive and aggressive he is.

But those articles did remind me of my family back in New Mexico. We saw them right before last year's election and we saw them this spring after Trump took office as well. And we never spoke of politics. I avoid them and will change the subject when it's brought up. Because it will lead to an argument and I don't want my limited time with them to be spent arguing. I am in the minority in my beliefs and I respect that. I am not going to change their minds, nor will they mine. The only time I even say anything about politics to my mother when we are talking is when she says something that I know is demonstrably false. A difference of opinion I gloss over, a lie I can't abide. But mostly I just stay quiet. Which is easy with my Mom and even mostly with my siblings.

But not with my uncle.

There are people in this world who love conflict just for conflict's sake. My uncle is one of those. The religion my family practices believes men are the head of the family. My uncle believes that means women should show deference to men in discussions about anything other than...well...I can't think of any other than but there might be one. My uncle also knows that I don't practice their religion or believe in their politics so I am ripe for an argument. He does his best to provoke one anytime we are together.

Including when I was home for my father's funeral.

I had been thinking about that while I read those articles.

Sitting in what was now my mother's living room instead of my parent's living room still shell shocked, as we all were right then and my uncle has Fox on the TV watching Glenn Beck who is working his chalk board with a passion showing how all of the ills in this world could be traced back to BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA! Now this was about a year and half in to Obama's first term. The economy was just starting to struggle back to breathing after the big crash. And my uncle starts in on how this recession was all Obama's fault.

I thought to myself, "Get up and go outside." but I just didn't have it in me to move right then. And seeing that I'm not biting my uncle turns up Glenn Beck (this was pre- oh I'm so sorry for ruining our country with all of my bullshit, Beck) and starts adding his own commentary to what is being written on the chalk board. I finally say, "You know he was left with Bush's mess right?"

Which made my uncle's face light up with glee. The opening he had been waiting for! "You can't blame Bush! This is all on Obama now!"

And we were off. The clean slate argument was made. The fact that Bush kept the wars off the books was pointed out. The lack of diplomacy vs. bomb dropping. I didn't get angry though, which made my uncle really frustrated. I just didn't have it in me right then to get angry. He was wrong, he was stating things that were wrong, I was correcting him, but I had zero passion about the exchange because, and here is the important thing, my father had just died.

Finally my mother, who had just lost her husband, had enough and announced that I hadn't even voted for Obama in the primaries. I had voted for Hillary. Which shocked my uncle so much he literally did the fish mouth thing...where it opens and closes and opens and closes with no sound coming out.

"I did. And I would vote for her again if she ran. I voted for Obama in the general, but I thought she would make a fine president. I think it's time to let a woman run the show for a while and see if we can get out of some of these man made messes."

And then I got up and went outside. I didn't want to be there when he caught his breath and went on about a WOMAN!

So the conversation in yesterday's piece was a work of fiction, but I can't call it a work of pure fiction because I imagined my uncle every step of the way. But you know it's fiction because as the main character leaves her mother tells her that SHE voted for Hillary, and please believe my mother did not vote for Hillary. I believe she voted for Johnson, but I won't ask because sometimes you need to believe what you need to believe. And sometimes you just need to get up and go outside.