time really changes things.
the night before mother’s day 1999, i did one of the most monumental things a person can do: i came out to my mom. i can still remember that night…
1997 ~ The Internet was a saving grace for me ~ where i could talk anonymously with like-minded women going thru the same things. it was a lifeline, when my RL situations would not have afforded me the ability to seek out support in the community. i was living at home with my mom, who was accustomed to knowing where i was going and who i was hanging out with. and i was petrified i would meet someone she knew at some GLBT coming out group, and someone would slip and say something to her by accident. so i spent two years finally coming to terms with myself, and tentatively coming out to distant friends, and then closer friends… i was finally at the place where it was time to tell the mama.
*scary*
a week or so before the coming out (which was not planned to coincide with the day i was supposed to be extra-nice to my mom, i swear!!!) i went downtown with a friend to the GLBT center, where she bought me the coolest rainbow rug, and where i bought a postcard with a quote by amelia earhart that struck me somewhere deep in my soul and i could not let it go. to this day, it leads my heart in so many choices i make.
“courage is the price life exacts for granting peace”
and so often in the weeks since i purchased the postcard, i took it out and looked at it, and read it, and i knew the time was coming closer and closer To Tell My Mom. i dont quite know how to explain what its like to have something that feels so huge to tell someone. years prior, there was a time when i swore i would NEVER tell her. after the summer of 1997, when i met my first group of Internets and made some great online friendships, i was finally going to meet one of the chicks for lunch. this was in january 2008. honestly, it was fine and safer than safe. i happened to show my mom a picture of said lunch friend, on a page with lots of others who i had chatted with for months… there were a few *couple* photos. and as soon as i opened the page and pointed out my friend, i thought “ohshit” and instantly, i started pointing to a couple who werent a couple, but were both married to men with kids and stuff. and then the dreaded question: “is ___ gay?” with such disgust and disapproval.
*gulp*
yes.
(that silence? thats the dead air space from my mom, that accompanied the look of the grandest disappointment, like i stabbed her in the heart)
“she is my friend”
i will spare you the detailed version, but interspersed with my helpless quiet statements of “but she is my friend…” my mom went on for what seemed an hour, about Why Gay People Are The Way They Are and then we went directly from that lecture into She Is Going To Seduce You. it is one of the most exquisitely painful times in my life… my heart hurt so much, it was aching and numb at the same time. i felt like i wanted to vomit and wished she would just yell louder and be angry and stop with the disgust, or just go away.
mercifully, this was a sunday. and she had to go to church. i ran upstairs and called my friend and said “i cannot come to see you…” she flipped, as she heard the story (minus the She Will Seduce You* part) and so my friend tells me she wants to email my mom, talk to her on the phone, and is right so, VERY defensive. and this is where i stammer… “uhh. ____. you cant. it will make things worse. i am not out to her yet…” and friend replies: “ohhh.” i ended up still going, and no. she did NOT seduce me. dammit. but we had an amazing time, and she has been a wonderful friend…
but from that day on, i swore i would never tell my mother. she broke my heart that day. and i didnt think that would ever heal, to be honest. i could not get the look in my mom’s eyes or the tone in her voice out of my head and heart.
and yet somehow…a little over a year later, i was frequently contemplating telling her. i wrote a poem in the fall of 1997, thinking about finally finding the girl i would spend my life with. and how i would not choose between my family/friends and the love of my life. there would be no contest. (i will share the poem later…)
i spent a lot of time in my room those days, listening to mel.issa eth.eridge and wearing this little chain with rainbow rings on them under my sweats. it was so important to me, to feel connected, even tho i was in such darkness in my own home closet. that rainbow rug, stayed in the bottom of my dresser drawer, wrapped in plastic for a long time. it was a really really sad time, in a lot of ways.
and so it happened… i had bought a book for my mom, about having a kid come out to you, and i decided i would show her the poem. i couldnt just SAY “mom, i am a lesbian and i want to be with girls and not boys” ~ so i had my little plan, and didnt know when the hell i was going to do it.
that saturday night, my mom had laid down for a nap and ended up staying in bed. i was in my room around 9-ish and writing poems or something, and i pulled that postcard out one more time. and this time, i reached for the poem, and it was like someone was behind me, holding me by the shoulders and pushing me forward down the hall. my stomach was in my throat and i think my heart was somewhere in my big toe. well. when they werent trading places.
i went into her room, and woke her up. (nice, eh?) and i dont recall being too eloquent in my telling her i wanted to talk to her. my voice always betrays me, and in this instance…i was grateful. i told her i wanted to show her something i had written. (i am sure she was thinking: WTF? can it not wait until my waking hours?) and so she leaned over and turned on the bedside light and i shakily handed her the paper.
she read. i tried to remember to keep breathing. i also tried to convince my heart and stomach to pick ONE place and stay put. it didnt work.
and then she was done reading. and the look from january 2008 was on her face again. not being so eloquent herself, she asked “does this mean what i think it means?”
*gulp*
it does.
and then the real disappointment and ick-face settles in. so much disapproval and confusion and questions, i guess. and then The Question I Dreaded For Forever…
“who is it?”
i told her it didnt matter. that i had been struggling with this for years, nearly 7 at that point, and that finally a few years before, just got tired of fighting it, and tried to see how accepting myself worked.
“but…who?”
i didnt have a gf at the time, and that was one of the reasons i chose to tell her when i did. i did not want it to be about sex and who was fucking (read: corrupting) me. i didnt want to put a gf in that situation, either…all that resentment and anger/upsetness. and so i told my mom it didnt matter WHO, and that even if i never had another gf, i would still be attracted to women, blah x 3.
i honestly cant recall how we ended things, or how i got the hell out of there. i think she told me she didnt understand it (meaning the sex - as that seems to be where all the parents go first) and she asked me to be patient with her, since it took me awhile to be OK with things myself. i think she told me she loved me. i didnt feel she really meant it unconditionally (this is a whole other blog) and i think she figured she should say it.
she did not talk about it with me, ever again really. a few weeks later, i had gone to a Em See See church service and when i returned she asked if i went to mass. i told her where i was, and that it was gay-friendly and she haughtily asked me the next day: “so does this mean you are giving up your religion?” i had some divine inspiration and countered with “no. but giving that it is the Cath*lic Ch*rch, they seem to want to give ME up…” ~ she had no reply. that following spring, i took a class in Lesbian Culture and when she asked the name of the class, and i said it, she visibly CRINGED. more broken pieces of my heart. these things killed me on a regular basis…and made me question my choice to tell her.
two years later, we had never discussed a thing. and i had no idea if she told her sisters or anything. it felt so insanely shame-filled, it almost felt better not being out to her. and then i met my gf. (oh jesus. this is getting long. and this is another story entirely…i had KNOWN the woman who would become my first real gf for 5yrs because *ahem* my mom worked for her *hahahahaha* and actually my MOM is who told me to invite her to a concert…)
so i started spending time with the gf who i had had a crush on all those years… and i honestly wanted to spend my life with her. in typical 2nd-date u-haul fashion, we began dating in the end of october and i was living in her house by early december. we were slow, i know.
so one night…i talk to mom, early on in the dating, and tell her that i really really like this woman, and i want someone to spend my life with… and i ask if she has told her sisters. (yes. almost immediately after i came out to her) and she asks if my friends know. (uh. yes. for years) and i told her that i couldnt handle the Not Ever Talking About IT. that is made me feel she was ashamed and i could not have that… and i reminded her of the poem and that i would choose my partner if it came down to it. and i also told her the biggest fears in coming out ~ which was one uber-religious friend who i feared her hubby would keep me from their daughters. i told mom that THAT is the only thing that would truly kill me ~ that i was strong enough to walk away from friends who dont support me, but those girls who are like nieces to me, if someone felt i was a threat to them, because of the adult i want to sleep with.
the look on my mom’s face was stunning. she had NEVER thought of anything like that. and that really is the last time there was ever direct talk of it…although there have been several moments of light peeking thru in her words and actions…
~ first christmas with my then-gf: mom gave us matching pj’s.
~ when things were really really over with then-gf, and i confided in mom that i missed her and was so sad, she said: “i really hope you meet a nice girl to love and to spend your life with…” (this was said prior to her second knee replacement, and she may have had a push of the pain-pump. but i like to think it wasnt the drugs but just a mom wanting her sad kid to be happy)
~ in a conversation with her god-daughter, my cousin: mom was talking about retiring but having to wait until Medicare kicked in (several years away at the time) and my cousin volunteered that its a shame i couldnt put mom on MY insurance, like you can a college kid on a parents. and my mom (MY MOM!!!) said to her: “i could say i am her live-in girlfriend. we DO have the same last name!!!” (CUTE, eh?)
when mother’s day comes around, i always feel like i want and need to tell my mom how proud i am of how far she has come… but i also know sometimes it is uncomfortable for her to talk about. next year tho, baby. it’ll be 10 years and i shall have to do something special!
* my FAV internal reply to this when my mom was lecturing me that day was “only in my BEST dreams” as i had the maddest never-going-anywhere crush on this girl.
** on the first time i went out with then-gf, we were headed to the concert and she was telling me that mom talked to her about my coming out, and she assured mom it wasnt a PHASE and then, i got fussed at for coming out to my mom on the night before mother’s day!!! (seriously, it was so devastating to her, NO DAY would have been good. and ANY DAY i chose would be forever tainted) but it was a funny pre-date conversation…