Interracial. All Day. Everyday.

When Pumkin and I started dating, I don't think we knew what we were getting ourselves into. We were just two silly kids who liked making out....really liked making out with each other. At first we were interesting because we seemed so mismatched. I was the teacher's pet and he was kind of a slacker slash troublemaker. I had a little popularity and he was rather unknown, but what became most important over the years was that I was black and he was white. Once we became serious it seemed that was all people could focus on. In restaraunts. In our families. With our peers. I was so naive and in love, I didn't really notice at first. The stares, the comments, the stupid questions (like "do you guys kiss?"). To make it worse Pumkin's last name just so happens to  be a racial slur. Yeah. No lie. So it made it all the more interesting and it also made us the butt of every joke. More like me. I don't know how being in an interracial relationship has affected  Pumkin. He doesn't really share it with me. I don't think he wants me to feel like a burden, and honestly I don't really want to know.
     His family has been - um, passive. I don't think they would ever admit it if they did have a problem with me being black. I think they know I'm not going anywhere and that I make Pumkin so happy they just bite their tongues. But I'm pretty sure they'd be happy if he would just dump me an dcome back with some mousy brown-haired Republican girl with no opinion on anything. They'd welcome her with open arms, not make random pointed remarks in her direction, not think every bad decision their baby boy makes is her fault, not think that she's stealing him away from them. No. They'd let him go with open arms to live in a house down the street from them to work in a bank and populate Ohio with plain, boring, Catholic kids. Not a girl like me. Not a girl who has their precious son visiting the ghetto just to see her. Not me, who has given their son the gift of thought. Free thought. Not telling him what to think one way or the other. Because everyone knows that once you unleash the mind, it is much harder to keep the body shackled. Not me, who happens to be from the wrong side of the tracks, the wrong side of the city, the wrong side of life.
    Mind you I have several academic awards and accolades, I have won two science fairs, been asked to speak on several occasion by various companies and schools, I've worked many charity events, won a pageant when I was four, and was valedictorian of my class. I was one of the only people in my class to move out of the city for college, I've lived on my own successfully for a year, and I'm on my way to becoming a successful clinical psychologist. I think most people would be happy to have me as a daughter in law. But there's just this one fatal flaw - pigment, melanin, shade, skin. I don't know one way to be better for him. I don't know if I  would do it if I did.
     But I like to believe that our love is stronger and more special because of us being different races. I think we get to bring two really rich cultures into the relationship and at the same time teaching one another about two different ways of life. Our story is one that I can't believe sometimes but I can't wait to have children who we can infuse with our heritages and looks, our flaws and ideas, the best of both of us. And ask the world "HOW  YA LIKE THAT???"


- Little Miss Perfect

Pumkin, let me count the ways

I first met Pumkin in ninth grade. Wow. That was like five years ago now. We were awkward. I was pudgy and going through the worst part of puberty. He was lanky, dealing with acne and had a beautiful mouth full of metal. I was disappointed because I thought he was Asian thanks to how everyone mispronounced his name. Instead I got a full blooded Irishman. My best friend and I became friends with Pumkin and his best friend and were inseparable for most of high school. But the fun part is that WE HATED EACH OTHER! We spat nails at each other most everyday. He just picked on me nonstop, and you will come to find that Pumkin can really get hurtful with his words when he wants to. I started dating and for some reason he sort of laid off. Not talking to me much either way. And then I started dating this guy - let's call him Mineman (we only give names to people who will eventually become important in the stories). We were sooo in love ..... well I was anyways. We were supposed to graduate and run away to California. And I was going to too. I would've done anything that guy asked, but like most silly men he blew it - and broke my heart in a way that only can happen with your first love.
     I moped for days - weeks even! Crying in public unabashedly, just wanting to know what I did wrong and how to get him back. Well my friends rallied around me especially my best friend in the whole world - let's call her Gingy (short for Ginger, she's gonna kill me.) Gingy must've known something Pumkin and I weren't smart enough to figure out yet because she told him to hug me on one of my more sobby days. Pumkin was not a particularly affectionate person (like my father. attraction #1). I don't know what she did to get him to do it but he did, and punched me in my down turned head in the process. It was a small gesture but it meant so much coming from the shy freckle-faced kid that will one day be my husband. And as the saying goes it was on like Donkey Kong. We flirted relentlessly for the next three or four months, making out in places we weren't supposed to be etc... But of course no commitment from him. No girlfriend no recognition. But why buy the cow....? So I had to take it into my own hands. I grabbed up my only resource Pumkin's best friend Mr. Pickles. He knew Pumkin was madly in love with me but just too shy (just like my father. attraction #2) to do anything about it.
     But I was fifteen and I had priorities DAMN IT! Or so I pretended. I let Mr.Pickles know I had other options and if Pumkin didn't move his ass, I'd be gone forever. I did have other options but I had no intentions of going anywhere, I'd probably still be waiting if he wanted me to. Luckily after much hesitation and a lot of acting on my part he asked. He was as red as a beet trying to ask me out with the fewest words possible. The rest was history. We'd date, I'd think I had better options, we'd split, he'd patiently wait for me to stop being irrational, and I'd come back. Rinse. Repeat. Kissing porcupines we are. He is patient enough to let me be a brat and love me nonetheless (just like my - are we seeing a pattern here?). Surprisingly Mineman was who got Pumkin to pop the question. Mortal enemies from the beginning, Mineman and Pumkin had very little in common. But on breakup #3 or 4 God knows, Mineman and I reconnected. I had left for Kent State and didn't want to be tied down by a long distance boyfriend. Well ever the dutiful man (attraction #4) Pumkin came and picked me up from Kent and drove me home for Christmas break. Mineman and I were to meet up  and there was an awkward situation at the mall. Pumkin and I were there just catching up and so was Mineman. My hometown is waaay too small.
      It was painful watching my lil Pumkin having to see Mineman hug me and be so caught off guard. Well in a surprise twist Pumkin swiftly swept me into a jewelry store. Knowing what it meant but being to afraid to think of it, I was caught in a mixture of crazy feelings. Excitement, pure love, fright, confusion - plus more. By Christmas Eve we were engaged and scared out of our minds. We'd been broken up for about five months before that, I lived 120 miles away from him. How would we do this?
  Well its been almost five maddening months since then and honestly we still don't have all the answers. The basic plan is I'm going back home, and we will find some small place to call home; just me, him, and love to get us through. We're in the process of trying to find jobs (which is increasingly difficult for me to do still living in Kent), and I move back home in a matter of days. We'll continue living with our parents until the job and apartment are located. So technically I'm moving back in with my mother...which could be - troublesome. All the more reason to find the apartment quickly. But you know what? I wouldn't change it. The situation is sticky and uncomfortable for the both of us but my God I love that man.
      He is so beautiful and unappreciated. He has the look of someone so powerful that just hasn't figured it out yet. I know one day he will be something so big, but he can't get any bigger in my world. He takes up all my time and most of my thoughts. My heart is always with him. He lets me pursue whatever my passion is at the moment and is never threatened by my success. He makes me want to be better, while never demanding a thing from me. He loves in a way that most of us will never master. In a way that most aren't mature enough to. People look at us and think he's the lucky one. I just laugh. I'm the lucky one, every time he smiles at me. Every time I show him another scar, another piece of baggage that I'm lugging into the relationship and he says I'm crazy for worrying. I don't deserve all the forgiveness he is so willing to bestow. I don't know how I've tricked him into believing I'm the one he should settle down with, but let's just let him keep on thinking that =).

- Little Miss Perfect

First Post....AHH THE POWERRR!

So this is my first posting. I've never had a blog before so this should be good. I don't actually expect anyone to read this so I guess that gives me some freedom. Hmmn where should I start? What do I say? Do I talk about myself? Do I talk about others? I'll probably end up doing quite a bit of both. I suppose this is a place for me to spew my brilliance all over the Interweb only to get popular after I die. Hurrumph, that's depressing. Moving on... Well let's see. I'm currently finishing my freshman year at Kent State. That was hellish and disturbing. I worked my whole life to move out of my hometown and now I get to move back to everything I swore I'd never subject myself to again. It's not a bad place, just where I grew up - thats enough. But I guess its all okay because of him. The reason I've given up all my freedom and newfound independence. He's my everything, my best friend, my support system, my little piece of heaven, my sparring partner, what isn't he? I call him Pumkin (yes I realize that's not how you spell pumpkin.) He has made my world a little bit prettier and reminds me everyday that there's always a reason to smile.
      So Pumkin and I recently got engaged and my life has been irrevocably changed. Everything is so different. I see things so differently. Everyone has taken it in their own way. My parents - well my mother is thrilled, my father is weary although Pumkin is the son-in-law everyone hopes for. His parents - ummm.... I don't think I'll ever truly know. I don't even think they know what they think of me. I kinda came out of nowhere and everyone expected I'd blow away - but I didn't and  April 27th 2013 I'll be a permanent part of the family! YAAY (right.) Ugh so much to say. This will be interesting.


- Little Miss Perfect