Happy Families

Tolstoy was wrong

Tolstoy once wrote that "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

This, of course, is just bullcrap.

Don't believe me? Go to a meeting of the children of alcoholics sometime. Sit and listen to the stories. But, more importantly, look at the other members as they nod in agreement. They’re all checking off the boxes on the list. Because it’s the same exact crap, with minor variations, on a race to the bottom.

For the law enforcement / first responders who come across this, tell me if the following sounds familiar: A domestic violence complaint comes in to 911. A patrol car pulls up to the incident, and officers engage. No matter who is being beaten, or who is doing the beating, it’s a crapshoot whether or not the victims will turn on the responding officers or not.

It’s depressingly easy to call that one.

On the other hand, my family is awesome. We watched TV shows on playback, with the pause button ready, because all of us were ready to rewrite the episode, or call where the episode is going. Sometimes, we preferred our endings to the episode than what we got.

The family films have always been Die Hard for Christmas, Blown Away for St. Patrick's Day. 1776 and Yankee Doodle Dandy and Independence Day for July 4th. Mother's day is The Manchurian Candidate, and father's day is The Empire Strikes Back.

We spent family time talking about philosophy, Ronald Knox, GK Chesterton, and the faith, because it's a living thing that we understand and enjoy and apply to our lives, without having to worry about having holier-than-thou rollers in our midst.

Sometimes we talk current events, because the family motto is that we exercise our freedom from the press.

I never really had a rebel phase. Because teenagers are morons, and I didn't want to go near them. I'm the nutbar who waited for marriage, so dating was interesting (read: nonexistent).

Now, riddle me this — how alike is my family to yours?

I am a Catholic, born and raised. For me, I'm not sure I have faith. I know there is a God, and, frankly, the tenants of the Catholic church just make sense. So does natural law. I don’t think I’ve ever had a crisis of faith, because all of the arguments I’ve heard from anti-Theists are stupid, self-centered and arrogant. All the arguments I’ve heard from simple non-evangelical atheists are ... “I don't believe. Who cares?” And we go on our merry way.

I grew up as the standard fat nerd. When I was in sixth grade, I read The Once and Future King and Mary Stewart's books on Merlin (yes, even That Wicked Day). I read them for fun.

When I was 16, I wrote 400,000 words of a space opera in my free time.

And my father is truly awesome.

The week after my 18th birthday, I unleashed a song parody of "I have a little list" from The Mikado. I had modified it for my high school, and it had gotten out into the wild. If you've heard the song before, you can understand why that's a problem. If you haven't, go check out a copy on YouTube.

If you've heard the song, and can't figure out what's the matter, I will give you a little bit of context. I was born in March of 1982. So I became 18 in March of 2000.

For those of my readers who might be too young, I'll spell it out. This happened the month before the first anniversary of a school shooting at a place called Columbine.

So ... yeah, you can imagine how well that went over. Though I do have relatives in the legal profession, so that ended as well as could be expected. This is sadly the most interesting thing in my personal life that might be of interest.

When I was in college, I had heard of Krav Maga, and tried teaching myself. And dang, it's fun. Then I took classes, and kept ending up with something going wrong just before my level 2 test. Yup. Murphy's law.

And the majority of my life has been dedicated towards my books.

So, depending on your point of view, I'm very well adjusted, and I'm a little boring. I've never had any major trauma, and I've been fairly restrained.

But my acquaintances have multiple personalities, and panic attacks and ADHD, and that's just one person. The others are even more colorful.

Misery is all the same. All happiness is unique.