Today’s Monday Memories to Make You Laugh are all about the dysfunction in families. I could probably write for days about the various ways my family is a little crazy…in an obscenely lovable way. But today…I’ll just tell you about this one little aspect of us.

My family is LOUD. Really. Fucking. Loud. I’m the quiet one. Well. One of the quiet ones. And I put a normal person to shame. Because we’re all loud. You have to be in a family like this. If you want to be heard, you better learn quickly to talk over everyone else. Which is hard. Really. Fucking. Hard.

As a kid, at sleepovers, I was the one getting yelled at to “BE QUIET!” even though I was using my best indoor voice. It just wasn’t an adequate indoor voice for normal households. At my house, yelling was more common that whispering. And yelling didn’t mean anger. It just meant…talking. LOUDLY.

Game nights with the ladies of the family were frightening. Remember that one time I told you all how much I hate Scattergories? It was because of game night with the ladies. They’re loud. And proud. And argue about things that are silly. Loudly. And they never listen to THE ENGLISH MAJOR. Because I’m not loud enough.

But in the exact same breath, the loudness of my family is endearing. It’s lovable. We laugh just as loud as we argue. We’re like Texas. Everything is just BIGGER. We even smile bigger. We cackle. All of the ladies in my family have this infectious cackle. Passed down from my Gram and maybe even before her, we got this big bold laugh that comes from the deepest part of our soul and reaches up to the heavens. And you can’t help but love it. Even though it’s loud. So. Very. Loud.

Every time we leave my family, Brian breathes a sigh of relief. Not because he doesn’t love my family–because he does. But because he comes from the quiet family. His family parties are just as loud as ours…but with THREE TIMES as many people. At least. And his immediate fam? Way quieter. When I met them for the first time…it reminded me of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. (Yes! My family is a lot like that actually. Just you know…not Greek.)

(Just watch from 1:00-2:00 on that clip. Unless you want to watch the rest. Because that movie is awesome. I made requested that Brian watch it during one of our first movie nights in.)

OK, so it wasn’t really awkward. Just quiet. Quieter than I am used to. Because my family is loud.

What about you, Blog Friends? Any family quirks that set you apart from the world?

Next week Lily from It’s a Dome Life and I will be writing about FIRSTS. If you’d like to write about a First (kiss, vacation, car, ANYTHING), send me an e-mail and I’ll make sure to link you in!