The Sunday Bombshell

So...I have this...I don't know? Quirk?

Where if I don't quite know how to process something...or if I don't want to process us something...

I don't end up writing/blogging.

Because I use writing to process my thoughts.

And it's hard to want to write when I don't know my full thoughts on it.

Hence my relative silence this past week.

Because I've been struggling on just how to...well process things.

You see.

On Sunday my family and I met up for our monthly family dinner. 

It was the normal sort of affair...

Until dinner was nearly done and Daddoo announced that he'd gotten engaged. 

Which. 

Honestly. 

I thought he was just joking at first.

Because while I knew he has been dating again. I didn't think he'd been that serious with anyone quite yet. 

Like there has been one person he's mentioned more often. And when I have spoken to him he's talked about trying to decide if he wants to marry them or not and the pros and cons and such.

But if marriage was in the cards....I was expecting it to happen later in the year. That he would propose at the earliest in the summer. But more likely towards the fall.

Instead.

He tells us that he's gotten engaged and proposed to this woman on Valentine's Day. 

The kicker though?

Is that NONE of us kids have MET her yet.

Like I've seen pictures of her as she did fly out to spend a week with Daddoo a few months ago. But she was just 'a friend' then and I didn't meet her. Only my Brother did and albeit that was only like a two second meeting as he'd come over to mow grandma's yard and my Dad and his friend happened to be there.

And here Dad is telling us he's engaged to her.

And it's just left us all reeling.

As again. We don't know this lady. We don't know her.

It's like that bad movie trope where the Dad sits his kids down one day and says "Hi kids, I'm getting married to a lady you've never met! Learn to love her okay?!"

Like.... who does that in real life?

Apparently my Dad does. XP 

Like I figured Dad would be getting remarried at some point. All of us kids have actually thought it would be good for him.

But I think we also all believed he would go about it the 'normal' way.

Aka. Bring the woman over to meet the family. Have her start to hang out with us for family get togethers. Maybe take a trip together. And then gather us kids around to let us know he's planning to propose and see if we're okay with it before he does so.

He didn't.

No it was "Hey, I proposed to this woman who is a complete stranger and we're getting married, but if you're not okay with that we'll totally call it off because we want your approval."

Like....how can we approve of something if we don't KNOW the person?

*exhales*

And let me set this straight.

My siblings and I are happy for Dad. We don't mind at all that he's getting married. We're looking forward to welcoming his new wife into our family. This is a change we will happily accept.

What we aren't happy about is the fact he just bombshelled this on us with basically little warning. No heads up. No meet and greet. Nothing. Just WHAM "I'm engaged." XP

And his excuse was "Oh we were only friends until recently, and she lives out of state she can't really drop by to visit."

Well there's these things called Phones? There's Face timing? There's ways we could have met her before this point.

But no.

We hear this lady's voice for the first time Sunday night not 15 minutes after Dad tells us he's engaged to her.

And she's apparently going to fly out next month for us to 'get to know her' before the wedding in a couple of months. 

But yah.

To say my siblings and I are still in shock is a bit of an understatement.

I don't think this is how any of us pictured how it would go.

And it hurts in many different ways. Ways I can't fully vocalize.

Like if you really value your kids opinion? Why not ask us FIRST and the propose later?

What's this cloak and dagger sort of interaction?

Why say "Hey we're getting married but if you don't want that to happen we won't do it." Like....how can you say that? How can you dangle marriage in front of a woman like that and then go "but if my kids don't like you we can't do it." that doesn't seem fair to her. Doesn't seem fair to us.

It's just....a bit of a mess.

And I did end up having a bit of a...I don't know...a blow up? At my Dad today through text because I needed to let him know that how he did this wasn't okay. It's not okay to hide relationships from your kids. Like this lady is going to be a part of our lives now. We're going to be interacting with her constantly when we gather for family things. We should have known earlier that you were getting more serious. That you wanted her to be your wife. There should be open communication with your kids. And you should definitely NEVER just surprise them with a life changing event like that.

It doesn't matter that all of us are grown and have moved out of the house.

It's a change in all of our lives and we should be made aware of the fact earlier so that we could get to know her first. 

*exhales*

Dad and I did end up smoothing things out and he did apologize to all of us about how he's gone about things and has promised to be better.

But yah.

It's probably going to take me a bit longer to process everything still.

Again. I'm happy he's getting married. And I can't wait to welcome his wife into our family.

I just wish our introduction to her had gone differently. 

Until you next find these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi