KarMel Scholarship 2008

Personal Story

“Waiting, Wondering”

By Kati Bloedau

Desciption of Submission: “A coming out story that I submitted to be read into a microphone in the middle of the cafeteria on National Coming Out Day. I came and dropped it off, but left before they read it.” – Kati

I've come out in little ways: telling a relatively new friend who offered to set me up with her husband's friend that I actually wanted to date girls instead of boys, thanks, and by introducing myself in workshops as someone who is getting used to the word queer (even when I wasn’t really comfortable with it yet), or by going to Gay Pride events and bringing my son, and finally by slapping a rainbow triangle on my car. I brought it up in clinical post conference, when I thought that my patient was coming out to me to because she could tell I was gay, and then it turned out to be a total misunderstanding. That experience showed me how much I would love for other people to be able to just look at me and know, how much I really want that validation, and how unrealistic it is to yearn for it. I wonder if I want people to just know so I wouldn’t have to directly talk to them, or sort through what gay means to them, or means to me, or is that the right word for me, and what if bisexual is a better label, and then what about all the stereotypes that folks have about bisexuality, and do I really want to open that can of worms?!

Talking directly to my mom, though – that’s a little personal Everest. I told my mom in a letter in 1992 that I was having some real doubts that I was straight; that was fifteen years ago. I think that she thinks that I was sleeping with the woman that I lived with after I left my husband, and I've never come right out to tell her that's not so, we really were/are just friends, but that yes, I would like to have a romantic relationship with a woman. And that, yes, I'd also like her to ask me if I’m dating anyone, to let me know that she wants to know, to show that she's interested. I want her to be all awkward and forced, like the mother in Six Feet Under when she found out her adult son is gay, talking to him about how she accepts that he’s gay, and wants to talk about it, and he wants to run out of the kitchen, because HE doesn’t want to talk about it.

I have put it all off on her. We've been distant since my separation and divorce, and I’ve been thinking that she hasn't been available to me, that she's been too busy. However, I know that a big part of my decision to leave my husband was that I didn't want to be in a monogamous heterosexual relationship for the rest of my husband's life. I know that he knew that, too, when I showed up to drop off our son after the Dyke March a few years ago with Sharpie markers t-shirts. (I didn’t say it right out to him either, but my shirt said Hi, Mom, I’m queer. That’s pretty clear, huh? Too bad I didn’t wear it to Mom’s house.)

I'm scared to tell my mom, scared that she will ignore me, or become cold or distant, or tell me that she’s totally okay with it, and then gradually stop calling as much. And that's actually the very thing that has happened in the past few years even though I haven’t said a word. Maybe it’s because I haven’t said a word. I really have no way to know if the distance that is between us is this big GAY question mark or something else. I don’t know because I’ve never asked.

There are a thousand reasons that I haven’t talked to her. I've been waiting to have a girlfriend to bring home. (Because everyone knows, you’re not really gay if you’re not actively sleeping with someone, right?) I've been waiting for my mom to ask. I've been waiting because surely she knows by now? I really don’t have to, right? But if I did talk to her, then I would know that she knows, and what if she’s been waiting for is for me to tell her, what if she’s been trying to show that she loves me by not asking because she thinks it would be prying or invade my privacy. I recently watched the movie Big Eden, and the lead character’s grandfather says tenderly, “How could I ever have allowed you to feel ashamed with me?” This weekend, my best friend's mother asked her if she was gay and she had a chance to say yes. Yes, Mom, I am! Thanks! Thanks for asking!

If I do talk to her, I could do it like this:

Mom, I've been waiting to tell you something. I’m bisexual, and I want to meet a woman and fall in love. I’m not sure if you want to know this, or how you will react, and I’ve been putting off saying it outright because I was scared. I've decided that it's okay with me if you don’t want to talk about it, and I’m thrilled if you do. I think about it a lot - about how I'd like to 'identify', what word or label is the one I’d like to use so that other people understand what I’m all about, how ridiculous that is when one word is never enough, about what it means to be 'out' to my kid's teacher when I don't have a girlfriend to introduce to folks, about what it means to be coming out and still be single, about the chance that my ex will freak out and try to get sole custody, or that my professors will shun me, or whatever. For years now, since I separated, I’ve assumed that all the women I meet are either straight, not into dating a mom, or not interested because I’m bi and was married to a man. I’ve assumed that no one really wants to talk about sexuality, because honestly, I’m not so sure that I even want to. It’s like I eliminated the whole world preemptively. It’s a lonely feeling, Mom, and I’m wondering if I can talk with you about it sometime.

I wonder.

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