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 "You're
neither unnatural, nor abominable, nor mad; you're as much a part of what
people call nature as anyone else; only you're unexplained as yet - you've not
got your niche in creation."
Radclyffe
Hall, The Well of Loneliness
I'm laying on my bed,
seeping warmth from the cat lying beside me and trying not to shiver within
the confines of my oversized sweatshirt. The phone is clutched to my ear and
the words bouncing around are a blur. It's a typical conversation with my
mother - a bushel of comments here, a couple of unrelated topics there, and
viola. We have filled up two hours with things we won't remember the next
morning.
It has been two weeks since
my fifteenth birthday, three weeks since I initially stumbled into my first
relationship with a female. I feel incredibly grown-up, and confident, and
elated with the first rush of combined chemicals that commonly give new
couples the look of maniacs. But there is something troubling me, something I
have given much thought to over the past few months. While my mother
continues to speak, and I reply with answers I vaguely recall, thoughts run
around my head.
OK, so bisexual they could deal with. But this? I mean, Mom, maybe.
What about Dad? And it means giving up everything I know. Marriage. The
possibility of being "acceptable" in society. Being the person
everyone wants me to be. Being the person everyone expects me to be.
Being the person that I am,
and my mother being the person she is, I switch topics (as we are so prone to
do in such conversations) and tell her what I'm thinking. How it scares me.
She does not decide either way, but tells me to say it if I truly believe it.
I tumble off the relative warmth of the bed, upsetting my cat, who sniffs haughtily and walks off with her tail
twitching. Ignoring her, I turn to the window and start pacing. There are
words, babbling, coming out of my mouth, but they are not controlled by me.
Finally, everything is focused. Well, in a blurry sort of way. My feet still
and I rest my elbow on the windowsill. The single light of our cul-de-sac
shines outside, and it's too bright to face. I'm pacing again. My hands try
to trail themselves through my hair, but it's tied back and I end up more
frustrated than before. There is a pulse in my throat trying to jump out of
my body and the phone is sweaty in my right hand. The familiar feeling of all
humans, what they call "butterflies," is making is a worthy
appearance. But these aren't butterflies in my stomach - they are greasy
knots, tying and untying themselves, retying themselves, feeling as if they
are alive and well inside my organs. Fear does not describe the emotion I
felt at that time. No, it was not fear of my mother, for I knew she loved me
and wanted me only to be happy. It was fear of loneliness, of not relating to
my friends, of losing my family, of being hated and having to deal with being
me. Then, as this is going through my mind at millions of miles a second, my
mouth decides to join in. With much gesturing of hands (not helpful, since my
mother is 1,500 miles away and can't see them), my mouth opens, closes,
opens, and-
"Mom, I'm
a lesbian."
"OK."
I do not feel
relief. The fear does not lift. My mother is not going
insane. I don't look different, I don't feel different, and to be honest, I
feel completely alone. Knowing my mother is on my side does not help, because
she is not gay. And I am only fifteen, and have no understanding of the
community or its many ways to reach out.
Yet for some reason, there's
a smile on my face. It's ten o'clock at night, I just told my mother I was a
lesbian, and I'm smiling. And for some reason, right now, that's enough.
*******************
Fast forward
eleven months. It is Easter weekend and I'm on my way to
my paternal grandmother's house. Because of family tradition, I have to go
eat dry meat and salty potatoes out of a box, with the added bonus of being
subjected to my grandmother's matriarchal house. It is hers, and she rules,
making this clear with jewelry made of gold hanging off of every surface of
her body and expecting her children to wait on her. She gave up on her
grandchildren listening to her years ago.
But I'm not bitter.
Originally, I
explain to my father on the way over, I was going to come out to his side of
the family on my birthday. Then, if anyone throws a hissy fit and decides to
throw me out of their will, the anniversary will not be a holiday or someone
else's birthday that I ruin, only mine.
But really, I tell myself in my head, if they haven't figured it out by now they're complete morons.
With repetitive and loud repeats of the oh- so-(in)famous lesbian songs my
friends hooked me onto, it was only a matter of time before they found the
connection between Jill Sobule's "I Kissed A Girl" and my own life.
Unfortunately, I couldn't say the same for Melissa Ferrick's
"Drive" - but that didn't stop me from playing it so loud my aunt
claimed she could hear it outside while she was gardening.
I wasn't completely sure how
I was going to pull this off - I had done nothing to prepare. A few weeks
before I had heard a comedian talk about coming out to his family over
Thanksgiving, joking that he told his mother to "please pass the green
beans to a homosexual." Not a bad
idea.
As was usual, we pulled up
to the house about one in the afternoon. After the obligatory greetings and
exchanged hugs with my grandmother, the only one already there, my brother retreated
to the basement to watch cable and I holed myself up in the computer room
with internet and my MP3 player hooked up to the speakers. Within minutes,
they were spreading "Closer To Fine" throughout the house.
The afternoon goes on, and
my Aunt Tracy and Aunt Darlene show up, though I can only hear their voices
from where I am. Around six o'clock, I am pulled from my lair into the dining
room to be sat next to Tracy and my brother. I make it perfectly clear I am
not happy with this by performing the teenage sulk and answering questions
with a dignified "Unh."
But, thanks to
oh-no-you-don't-young-lady glares given to me by my dad, I start to become
more amiable as dinner continues. Conversation revolves around the WASL,
school, etc. Something concerning gay marriage or gay rights is brought up by
me, and is typical, I am the only one commenting on
it. The rest of the table stays silent, then my
grandmother changes the topic to something mundane again.
The rest of dinner is a
blur, similar to all the others I have attended over the years. Dessert is
the same. Suddenly I am sitting by Darlene, unwrapping
my chocolate Easter rabbit and nibbling off its ears with precision. Half of
my head is with the words being tossed carelessly across the table, while the
other half is inside my head.
Tell them. Tell them now. Yes, your uncle isn't here, but whatever,
everyone else is. Fuck. This was stupid. But you have to tell them. Just do
it.
As my train of thought
finishes, there is a lull in conversation. In those milliseconds before my
brain causes my jaw muscles to move, open, vocal cords to work, my heart is
pounding. I'm amazed everyone at the table can't hear it. My breathing rate
has increased, causing me to take quick, shallow breaths. Later I will remember
the article I read that says this is what happens when an animal believes it
is facing a threat - its body prepares for fight or flight, both of which
take quick movements and increased bodily function. The irony of that is not
lost on me.
"Um...so, I have
something...that...I need to tell you guys."
Their faces
turn to me, sure by the tone of my voice that it won't be something that
they'll like hearing. Of course, my body language isn't helping either. I am
hunched into myself, elbows resting on the rough lace tablecloth. When I pick
them up later, I'll have marks from it, I know. My eyes refuse to meet
theirs, instead staring at my rabbit as if the world depends on it.
"Um, well...I'm a
lesbian. And it's something that I've told everyone else, but you guys were
the last big ones, so..."
I can't see their reaction,
and I'm not sure I want to. The last part was rushed, babbled, almost mumbled
incoherently. No one says anything for half a minute. It's the longest thirty
seconds of my life.
Finally, Darlene says
"Well, you know we still love you." Tracy chimes in with an agreeable
"Yeah," while my dad nods his head as if he had no idea before.
This does not make me angry, as I expected nothing more from my father. His
loyalty lies with his mother, and if he had let on that he had known before
this evening, she would feel extremely betrayed he had not told her earlier.
My grandmother does not say
anything. She sits in her chair at the head of the table, completely silent.
After my aunts' comments, they pick up the plates and start carrying them
into the kitchen. Still, she is silent.
Then she turns to my father
and starts a conversation about the new store opening up down the street. What the fuck? I think, I just told her I will never marry a man,
may not give her grandchildren that are biologically hers, that I will live a
life full of discrimination, and she TALKS ABOUT A GROCERY STORE?!
I do not remember the rest
of the night, only feeling relieved. While I had not told my father's family
I had still been in the closet, in a sense. With me feeling so comfortable
with my sexual orientation, it was ridiculous to continue living that sort of
life.
The relief continued until
my brother, my father and I were getting ready to leave. Standing in the
foyer, shoes being pulled on, the expected hugs being doled out and the
"Drive safely!" being yelled our way from the kitchen where the
women were still cleaning up.
As we got into the car, I
told my dad, "What I wouldn't give to be a fly on that wall." He
asked me what I meant, and I told him, "You don't think they're talking
about me right now?" Shaking his head, he doesn't answer, would not want
to believe that possible from his sister, mother, and sister-in-law.
I was not thrown out of a
will. No one had a temper tantrum. Hell, to my knowledge, did not freeze
over.
My grandmother had sat in
stony silence. Darlene had made an effort. Tracy had jumped on the bandwagon. And my
father had pretended he had no knowledge of who I really was.
But the relief. The relief,
the feeling of freedom, of being who I am completely and not hiding from
anyone. That is the part that made it all worthwhile.
********************
One and a half
years later, I am finally now able to look back on both instances with a
sense of the time passed, and the progress made not only in my own life but
in the lives of gays everywhere. Amendments banning gay marriage, court
rulings allowing it. Adoption and IVF becoming easier. And I am now able to
reflect upon what those two past events, combined with present life, mean for
me.
When I came out to my
mother, I did not feel like I was emerging from the closet. The relief that
so many people describe never happened in that moment. This may have been for
several reasons - her reaction being one. She was not one of those parents
who suddenly started crying and asking themselves what they had done wrong.
This was not a shock to her, and she didn't care that I was a lesbian as long
as it made me happy. It is also possible that she already had a fairly good
idea that I was not at all straight. My last "relationship" with a
male had been three years ago.
Telling my mother changed
me, and my life, in much more subtle ways than telling my father's family. It
did help that the first person I came out to was safe, a person I knew would
not hate me for being gay or see it as "just a phase." This did
give me a small amount of courage to come out to my father two weeks later,
and several of my friends in the following months. The fear was not a
response to being unsure of my decision, but of hating that I was being cast
into a world I did not know. A character from "The L Word" put it
best when she said, "Straight women spend most, all, of their lives
preparing for the husband, the kids, the house. Then they have these
feelings, and they're different, and they're new, and they cast them into
uncertainty." It took coming out to my mother, and learning about the
gay community, to find out that the uncertainty was not about what I was
saying, but about the world I was being thrust into.
It also helped just coming
out to someone. Once you're out to one person, it's very hard to stay
"in the closet" with everyone else. She also did not treat it like
something I was "just going through," but as something that was me
and would be me for the rest of my life. If my mother ever had a hard time
accepting it, she never let on.
Seeing how coming out to my
father's family affected me is much easier. The relief I felt after saying it
is beyond compare. It has given me the authority to say to friends that
unless they are in mortal danger, it would be so much better for them to live
life outside of the closet. Fully coming out made me so much more confident,
in both everyday life and in dealing with my father's family as well.
Nowadays, if I feel my grandmother is making snide remarks, I will call her
on it, something I could not do when I was still closeted. Feeling like
hiding part of myself made me anxious, and made me
want to spend time with them even less. The confidence telling them gave me
transferred into everyday life when, for some reason or another, I came out
to friends or acquaintances or authority figures or anyone else.
The two events themselves
affected each other. I was partially afraid when I told my mother because one
of the things rushing through my head was the fact that coming out to my
father's family would be one of the hardest and most terrifying things I
would have to do as a lesbian. And telling my mother not only let me know
that someone, even if it wasn't my father's family, was on my side, but also
gave me time to accept my own homosexuality. If I had told my father's family
right after coming out to my mother, I would have been unsure of myself and
their lack of support would have dealt a much bigger blow than it did. As it
was, with almost a year between the two events, I had time to make gay
friends, become involved in the homosexual community, have relationships, and
figure out what being me meant. By the time I came out to my grandmother's
family, I was comfortable in my own skin, which helped me to accept their
less-than- accepting response.
There is no way to end this
story. It does not need an ending. The story of coming out, of being who I
am, never ends. I will be coming out to people in college, when I have my
illegal marriage, when I create children in the "non-traditional"
way, when I am old and grey. Who knows, I may be coming out to people on my
deathbed.
All I know is that emerging
from the closet changed me. It helped me realize that I am a person who can
find happiness, she just has to go through channels other than those deemed
"normal." It has made me think more when dealing with other people,
about how I treat them and perhaps discriminate against them. I've learned to
build up armor against the attacks that are blindly hurled my way. Now I know
how to treat homophobes, racists, and everyone else who discriminates based
not upon fact, but upon fear - after all, they are all the same in the end.
There is only one thing I
can say for certainty about this. Those without experience with homosexuals
often do not realize this, though they may be open-minded. It is a statement
that I was introduced to by a close friend. It did not tell me I was not
weird, or not a freak, for I already knew that. It helped me realize there
was not a choice in coming out - it was a need. It was not a selfish want to
spread my homosexuality in a heterosexual world. My friend told me, if I
remembered nothing else, to remember only this:
Coming out did not make me a lesbian.
Being a lesbian made me come out.
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