My cousins wedding is coming up this weekend.

It's interesting, while this isn't something I ever envision for myself, I mean they are a picture of typical monogamous het couple, I'm happy for them.
I think I'm also a little envious of the attention that our family will pay them for something that doesn't actually *require* a lot of effort and/or personal growth. Not at all saying that people *don't* put in effort and experience personal growth before they get married, but that it doesn't require it. People get married all the time, it doesn't require a test or a minimum time length on the relationship or anything. It's celebrating the *start* of something.

I fully acknowledge that I am freaking lucky. I can bring home a same sex partner and not have dire consequences. However just cause I have it better than many, doesn't mean I don't want more. I'm envious because I will never get to have a big party where my *bio* family will celebrate a milestone I have with my lover and maybe my other lover/girlfriend/whatever let alone have them acknowledge the worth and validity of having more than one relationship.

Ha, and now I'm getting to the point. I was thinking about writing something to maybe read at the wedding. We often have an opportunity to go up and say something at stuff like this. I usually never speak cause I'm shy and don't have anything prepared, but more and more I've been finding my voice and realizing what I have to say isn't stupid. So I sat down to write and really, the only thing I want to say is maybe a bit of advice on the importance of communication and honesty. Here, with my family, I run into the prejudices around age and heterosexism. Also my own closetedness. They only see the very few people I bring home and they certainly don't hear about the huge opportunities for growth and learning. Who am I to them, to give relationship advice?

But I think as a poly queer, I have developed some decent relationship skills, many of which are transferable to a mono het relationship. So here I am pondering what lessons to attempt to pass on and how to do so in a manner appropriate for a cousins wedding. While I want to be true to myself, I still want this to be about them. It's their freaking day, I actually want this to be more of a gift than a podium for myself.