My aunt started our short family dinner tonight by asking that question. And I knew it wasn’t going to go well. Chris and I were overlapping for one day for our San Francisco travels, and since we never really have any real conversation, we both knew this meal was just out of obligation so that he could see my parents for a short time.. because well, that’s all the time he can really tolerate being around them. To this day, they won’t really talk openly with him. My dad has stopped trying to engage. In fact, when we arrived this afternoon, he half-heartedly greeted us and said he had to go “pick something up” and would be back in 20 minutes.

My aunt said she thought it had only been two years. We corrected her and told her it was four. And then my aunt marveled at how quickly time passes.

To which my mom interjects loudly, “Well then, what are you waiting for!”

It’s always fun when your family feels like they have to either directly or indirectly imply that you need to be doing things on the timeline they want for you vs. the timeline that you want to live your life. And it’s even more fun when your family members collude in this and gang up on you all at once.

So Chris, thinking he would be cute and cheeky, said, “Yeah, what are we waiting for, Yvonne?”

My mom doesn’t really understand most jokes, and she especially did not understand this. She later pulled me aside to confront me about this comment Chris made.

“It sounds like Chris wants to have kids and you do not,” she said to me gravely. “What is wrong with you?”

I told her she knew nothing about what we were trying or not trying to do, and that he was joking.

When is she going to learn that her nagging and meddling is never going to help any situation? Never?