17 days and counting...

17 days until I see TheBrit again (yay!) and 23 days until I'm back in London.

Apparently my father wishes to "check him out" and "explain to him that if he screws over my daughter he'll be finding out what CPR is." I think my father has a few latent issues. No matter how amusing he might find it, I don't appreciate the threat to my boyfriend/partner's well-being. Yes, yes, I know he's being Daddy Protective, but still. I'm thirty in a little over a month and the amount of involvement he's had in my life lately has been minimal. (Likely because I am thirty in a little over a month.)

It's strange. I never thought I'd be the one to settle down. I honestly figured that I'd have a string of interesting relationships throughout my life but never really decide to kick it into wedding bells and all that jazz. Now that it looks like that's a possibility (and because he reads this, TheBrit is not allowed to tweak about anything I say about this here. Neener.) I'm figuring out the thing that probably tweaks me most about marriage. My family. Yep. I don't think everyone I'm immediately related to has been in the same room... Ever. And I suspect that I will have a full-on Bridezilla meltdown if they don't all play nice. Eloping sounds better and better and better every moment that I think about it.

We're past the historical need to "blend families" via marriage. There is no business or lineage bonus to this pairing. I am no longer considered chattel merely because of a consequence of sex. Sure, my upper body strength sucks, but I'm a fully capable person in my own right and don't need to be "given away" or otherwise transferred from my household of birth to a future spouse's household. I do not represent the continuation of any lineage (and if anyone's expecting it... Grow a uterus and do it yourself. Mine is not for rent, lease, or sale).

And honestly? I'm going to be 30 (at least) when I finally do get hitched, if TheBrit and I decide that's how we want our relationship to progress. Yeah, I dig his folks and his family. They don't drive me crazy like I'm sure they do to him sometimes. And he digs the ones of mine that he's met. I just really don't need my father to put him through some arbitrary bullshit adversity test. You know what, Dad? He may not be a hunter and a fisher, but we don't need to share every single hobby. I understand that he's a separate and distinct person and what he does with his spare time and money is up to him. We have enough in common that we suit one another quite well. Hunting and fishing are not the day in, day out existences that he and I both value. It's a skill, and should the apocalypse come, he'll learn or starve...

I don't need an alpha male. I really don't want one. (They're boring, they smell, and really, they're just not good people all the time.) What I have is the possibility of a wonderful life with a person that suits me more than I could have imagined in my life, and I'm really fucking lucky. I don't care about what he can't do. I care about who he is and how good of a person he is to me and for me. If you disapprove, then that is your right. But you will be down a daughter, because this person is who I choose to cleave to, not required to as a result of a genetic pairing.