I just go ahead and cross them when my brain decides to cross them–usually well in advance of them actually occurring.  This leads me to getting twelve hundred percent worked up about stuff that, in all likelihood, will never happen.  Of course, knowing that does not stop me from standing in the middle of my living room (or the shower) and railing at the person who most likely won’t (but also very well might) piss me off to the point of tears.

Do I even need to tell you that I’m starting to stress out about the holidays?

I was raised in a kind of…repressed…environment.  My family believes strongly in company manners.  Strict company manners.  For those of you not raised with this, let me explain.  In my family, no matter what is going on between you and someone else in your family–when you are in public, or at someone’s house, or having someone over, you are the happiest getting alongingest family in the world.  You do not share or show any antagonism you and other family members might be feeling toward each other.  Ever.  Even if all you want to do is rip the other person’s face off, you smile and get along while there are other people nearby.  It’s sort of like the extreme version of Don’t Air Your Dirty Laundry in Public.

Will’s family is not like that.  In fact, they are the polar opposite of that.  They make the Jerry Springer Show look like Quaker Church.  Sometimes I think they are actually happiest when they are tearing each other apart. And that’s fine if that is what you are used to dealing with.  If that’s how you communicate best–through confrontation and fighting, then hey–I am not judging you.

I’m just saying that it is hard for people like me to deal with.  I believe in picking my battles, not being right at all costs.  I don’t care about winning an argument–I don’t want the argument to start in the first place.  If I get sucked into one, I’m more of a “pull every shred of evidence I have on my side out and use it” than a “say every hurtful thing I can think of whether its true or not” arguer.

This year Will and I are hosting Christmas.  This year our little two bedroom apartment will have twelve people shoved into it.  That’s close quarters and irritatey no matter what your communication style or temperament.

In all likelihood everything will be fine.  The logical part of me says that everyone will behave and that Christmas will actually turn out to be pretty fun.  The illogical part of me, well…. there’s the whole getting worked up in advance thing I already talked about…