(no subject)
Oct. 12th, 2021 01:23 pmrepost, originally written nov. 15, 2014
bringing this over here from somewhere else:
when i first came out (as bisexual), my mother cried. she told me bisexuality wasn't real, and that thoughts weren't actions. a week later she said, "i've been thinking about that talk we had. if you came to me if you said that you had never taken a drink, but thought about it a lot, do you think that would really make you an alcoholic?"
"no." i answered.
we didn't talk about it again for several years.
when i was nine years. old she checked out an art book from the library. "come here," she said, "i want to tell you about an amazing woman."
she opened the book to a page of paintings by frida kahlo. we sat there for a while as she told me all about kahlo, about her life, her beliefs, her politics, what her paintings meant, why she loved her eyebrows. i was nine and didn't understand most of the political, but as i learn more and more about her today, i realize how telling it is that my mother didn't believe half of what she pretended to at that time.
we homeschooled in an environment that was very christian. the other moms were women whose husbands had never seen them without makeup because they must always be their best for their husbands. girls couldn't wear shorts or sleeveless shirts or low-rise jeans to group functions. we held purity classes every semester. evolution was a lie. fox news was law. george w. bush was god's own mouthpiece.
i wish my mother had told me earlier of her doubts, of her own disbelief in so many of these things. she wanted a von trapp family, and she thought she saw that in these families of 5, 6, 7 children, all dressed in homemade jumpers and able to recite whole chapters of scripture. if she only tried harder to fit in she could be happy, too.
*
every christmas break during college i came to my mother crying about how i couldn't go back, how i was miserable, how i was failing, how i never wanted to step foot on that campus again.
"just stick it out this semester," she would say. "if you still feel that way in the summer, you can switch."
so when i finally dropped out, i did it without telling anyone. that christmas as relatives asked what classes i would be taking the next semester i said, "i'm not going back. i'm transferring to university of arkansas in the fall."
my mother was shocked. my father was angry.
"why didn't you talk to me?" my mother asked.
"if you want to be an adult, then pay your own bills. get your own cell phone and car insurance," my father said.
i ended up not transferring after all. i was offered a full-time job in the children's department of our public library and spent two years working full-time and finishing my degree part-time and was still miserable and ended up failing my final semester.
the work experience has done me just as good, though.
*
one day in tenth grade my mother sat me down. "ms. marsha told me that one of your friends is a drug dealer," she said.
"who?"
"george. i think you should stop spending time with him."
"i don't like him. he's annoying. he just hangs out with us at lunch." it was the truth.
"oh! well that's good. you're at the age where you're going to have to start making tough choices about the kind of people you hang out with. even people who are good friends and make us happy can have bad secrets."
"i know," i said.
"oh, rebecca," she said, looking at me sadly. "just be glad you don't have any gay friends. that's the hardest."
*
"rebecca, i need you to try on your pants and show them to me."
"why?"
"i just got a letter from the homeschool co-op that they're making a rule that your clothes have to fit so that if you raise your arms up, your stomach doesn't show."
i was 12 years old and a d-cup by this point. this meant my shirts rose considerably higher than most girls' when i raised my arms thanks to the extra pull from my breasts. i went to my mom's room and tried on every combination of shirts and pants i had. one of them passed the test.
"this will just have to be your co-op outfit, then. i'm sorry. this is ridiculous."
"you could just take the younger kids," i said. "i don't really have friends there anymore since shannon and elizabeth moved away."
"i'm sorry, rebecca," my mother said again. "they should make a rule about how tight evan sicole's pants are. i don't need to see every detail of a 13 year old boy's junk emphasized by a giant belt buckle."
*
"i have a girlfriend," i said.
my mother went stiff.
"we met at dragon*con. is it okay if she visits for new year's?"
my mother was quiet for a minute before she said, "yes, that's fine. i look forward to meeting her."
*
i woke up one morning to screaming. i ran outside to where my mother was standing, sobbing, as my father threw a suitcase into the trunk of the car.
"where are you going, daddy?" i asked, and started to run towards him, but my mother caught my shirt. "don't go near him. it's not safe."
i started crying as my father shouted, "i'm leaving! i'm going away and i'm never coming back."
i don't remember how long he was gone. i remember we lived in my mother's friend's guest house until my mother felt it was safe to return home. i actually didn't remember this had happened until a few years ago when i started going to a college bible study at that friends house. i looked out the glass doors into the back yard and saw that guest house and just suddenly knew.
i remember sitting in a chair with my mother's asl book in my lap and looking up the sign for divorce. i signed it.
"your father and i are not getting a divorce," my mother said. i hadn't realized she was in the room.
seventeen years later i got a phone call. "i'm divorcing your father."
*
"what is homosexuality?" i asked my mother.
she took a deep sigh. "it's when men have sex with men and women have sex with women."
"oh," i answer.
"why are you asking?"
"rachelle said they were boycotting disney because they support homosexuality."
"yes," my mom said. "there are people who think homosexuals should be able to get married have adopt children."
"oh."
"i never even conceived that this would be something our nation considered. i can't even imagine what your children are going to witness in the future."
*
for my thirteenth birthday my parents gave me a purity ring. it was gold with a large pearl set between two small diamonds. i lost it a couple of years later and when we found it, it was bent out of shape and the pearl was missing.
i knew it was a sign that god was ashamed of my sexuality.
*
brittney and i are sitting across the table from my mother and her boyfriend.
"you know," my mother says, "if the past few years have taught be anything, it's that i will always have far more questions than answers, and that's okay. if ten years ago, you would have asked me where i'd be in ten years, nothing about my life right now would have been the answer. and i may have learned that i'll never know god's intentions or what he has planned, but i do know this: i have seen gay couples that exhibit god's love in their relationship with each other far more than many straight couples i know, and as long as you two strive to love and respect and be good to each other the way god wants families to, then i'm okay with this."
bringing this over here from somewhere else:
when i first came out (as bisexual), my mother cried. she told me bisexuality wasn't real, and that thoughts weren't actions. a week later she said, "i've been thinking about that talk we had. if you came to me if you said that you had never taken a drink, but thought about it a lot, do you think that would really make you an alcoholic?"
"no." i answered.
we didn't talk about it again for several years.
when i was nine years. old she checked out an art book from the library. "come here," she said, "i want to tell you about an amazing woman."
she opened the book to a page of paintings by frida kahlo. we sat there for a while as she told me all about kahlo, about her life, her beliefs, her politics, what her paintings meant, why she loved her eyebrows. i was nine and didn't understand most of the political, but as i learn more and more about her today, i realize how telling it is that my mother didn't believe half of what she pretended to at that time.
we homeschooled in an environment that was very christian. the other moms were women whose husbands had never seen them without makeup because they must always be their best for their husbands. girls couldn't wear shorts or sleeveless shirts or low-rise jeans to group functions. we held purity classes every semester. evolution was a lie. fox news was law. george w. bush was god's own mouthpiece.
i wish my mother had told me earlier of her doubts, of her own disbelief in so many of these things. she wanted a von trapp family, and she thought she saw that in these families of 5, 6, 7 children, all dressed in homemade jumpers and able to recite whole chapters of scripture. if she only tried harder to fit in she could be happy, too.
*
every christmas break during college i came to my mother crying about how i couldn't go back, how i was miserable, how i was failing, how i never wanted to step foot on that campus again.
"just stick it out this semester," she would say. "if you still feel that way in the summer, you can switch."
so when i finally dropped out, i did it without telling anyone. that christmas as relatives asked what classes i would be taking the next semester i said, "i'm not going back. i'm transferring to university of arkansas in the fall."
my mother was shocked. my father was angry.
"why didn't you talk to me?" my mother asked.
"if you want to be an adult, then pay your own bills. get your own cell phone and car insurance," my father said.
i ended up not transferring after all. i was offered a full-time job in the children's department of our public library and spent two years working full-time and finishing my degree part-time and was still miserable and ended up failing my final semester.
the work experience has done me just as good, though.
*
one day in tenth grade my mother sat me down. "ms. marsha told me that one of your friends is a drug dealer," she said.
"who?"
"george. i think you should stop spending time with him."
"i don't like him. he's annoying. he just hangs out with us at lunch." it was the truth.
"oh! well that's good. you're at the age where you're going to have to start making tough choices about the kind of people you hang out with. even people who are good friends and make us happy can have bad secrets."
"i know," i said.
"oh, rebecca," she said, looking at me sadly. "just be glad you don't have any gay friends. that's the hardest."
*
"rebecca, i need you to try on your pants and show them to me."
"why?"
"i just got a letter from the homeschool co-op that they're making a rule that your clothes have to fit so that if you raise your arms up, your stomach doesn't show."
i was 12 years old and a d-cup by this point. this meant my shirts rose considerably higher than most girls' when i raised my arms thanks to the extra pull from my breasts. i went to my mom's room and tried on every combination of shirts and pants i had. one of them passed the test.
"this will just have to be your co-op outfit, then. i'm sorry. this is ridiculous."
"you could just take the younger kids," i said. "i don't really have friends there anymore since shannon and elizabeth moved away."
"i'm sorry, rebecca," my mother said again. "they should make a rule about how tight evan sicole's pants are. i don't need to see every detail of a 13 year old boy's junk emphasized by a giant belt buckle."
*
"i have a girlfriend," i said.
my mother went stiff.
"we met at dragon*con. is it okay if she visits for new year's?"
my mother was quiet for a minute before she said, "yes, that's fine. i look forward to meeting her."
*
i woke up one morning to screaming. i ran outside to where my mother was standing, sobbing, as my father threw a suitcase into the trunk of the car.
"where are you going, daddy?" i asked, and started to run towards him, but my mother caught my shirt. "don't go near him. it's not safe."
i started crying as my father shouted, "i'm leaving! i'm going away and i'm never coming back."
i don't remember how long he was gone. i remember we lived in my mother's friend's guest house until my mother felt it was safe to return home. i actually didn't remember this had happened until a few years ago when i started going to a college bible study at that friends house. i looked out the glass doors into the back yard and saw that guest house and just suddenly knew.
i remember sitting in a chair with my mother's asl book in my lap and looking up the sign for divorce. i signed it.
"your father and i are not getting a divorce," my mother said. i hadn't realized she was in the room.
seventeen years later i got a phone call. "i'm divorcing your father."
*
"what is homosexuality?" i asked my mother.
she took a deep sigh. "it's when men have sex with men and women have sex with women."
"oh," i answer.
"why are you asking?"
"rachelle said they were boycotting disney because they support homosexuality."
"yes," my mom said. "there are people who think homosexuals should be able to get married have adopt children."
"oh."
"i never even conceived that this would be something our nation considered. i can't even imagine what your children are going to witness in the future."
*
for my thirteenth birthday my parents gave me a purity ring. it was gold with a large pearl set between two small diamonds. i lost it a couple of years later and when we found it, it was bent out of shape and the pearl was missing.
i knew it was a sign that god was ashamed of my sexuality.
*
brittney and i are sitting across the table from my mother and her boyfriend.
"you know," my mother says, "if the past few years have taught be anything, it's that i will always have far more questions than answers, and that's okay. if ten years ago, you would have asked me where i'd be in ten years, nothing about my life right now would have been the answer. and i may have learned that i'll never know god's intentions or what he has planned, but i do know this: i have seen gay couples that exhibit god's love in their relationship with each other far more than many straight couples i know, and as long as you two strive to love and respect and be good to each other the way god wants families to, then i'm okay with this."