Crossing Over

I'm listening to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sing about saints and angels.  I've collected angels for years, sad ones, young ones, protective ones, "angelic" ones.  They are scattered through my house next to my crosses.  Growing up Mormon, the cross was taboo.  There are no crosses anywhere on or in the Mormon churches and temples, and wearing or displaying a cross is heavily frowned upon. It it considered to be both an "idol," and also a representation of Christ's death, when what we are taught (or expected) to celebrate is His resurrection.  It was His power to overcome death which supposedly allows us all to live again someday, to be raised from death, perfected, and sealed to our families in the Celestial Kingdom, forever! We could have these blessings as long as we obeyed Him, made and kept our covenants, repented of our sins...

After leaving my childhood religion and finding nothing suitable to replace that now empty place in my center, I found myself inexplicably drawn to the beauty of the cross as a symbol. I was drawn to it but unable to touch it. When I bought my first cross, a cheap and sparkly key chain, which I then hung from a rainbow ribbon off the rear-view mirror in my Subaru (Yes, I said "Subaru!" Seriously. I didn't mess around. I was a lesbian now, and I wasn't going to do it in a small way!), I slowly began to understand the draw this religious symbol had for me. I already knew that it wasn't the association with Christ that drew me. I'd worked through my conflicted beliefs about the fall, resurrection and atonement long before I'd first noticed that I was in love with crosses.  It certainly wasn't a hunger for religion that drew me. 

It was the taboo. To my family, the appearance of the cross in my environment symbolized the reality and the depth of my apostasy.  I knew when I displayed a cross, there would be no question in their minds that I had been lost, at least temporarily. Well, as if "coming out" had not been enough to do that already? But my need for the cross in my life went so much deeper than trying to prove something to my family. And, in fact, my early hesitance to display a cross was associated with not wanting to hurt or disappoint my family any more than I already had. What hanging a cross from anywhere in my world symbolized to me was freedom, not from death as I'd been taught to believe.  It represented freedom from dogma. Oddly, hanging a cross was my first real rebellion, a symbol of finally being separate enough from the beliefs of my childhood that I could own something I found to be beautiful, and it was nothing more than just... something beautiful.  The negative meanings and attachments I'd associated with the cross were no longer what was dominant in my life. I could love crosses because I loved them, regardless of what anyone else chose to believe about that. It was not unlike the transition I'd already gone through with my recognition of my sexual orientation and identity. My love of the symbol, I understand now, was a small, latent reminder that popped up many years after I'd come out, to represent the reality that what I love is mine to love, no matter what anyone else teaches or believes about it. Who I love is mine to love, no matter what anyone else teaches or believes about him, or her. And how I love, and even how many I love, and when, are subjects that are simply nobody's business by my own. 

When I first started to indulge my interest in the cross, I was still exclusively dating women, and in fact was in a long(er)-term monogamous relationship. Looking back, I find it fascinating that the symbol which has continued to speak to me so deeply is one that potentially antagonizes both my Mormon family and my gay friends. Of course there are exceptions, but so many of my friends in the LGBTQ community have followed the pendulum to a place far removed from Christianity. I understand the inclination to reject the groups that have first rejected us, not to mention the reality that the cross is a symbol which has been held up to justify hate and destruction for centuries. I get it. What I find so intriguing about my continued deep longing for the symbol, a symbol which for me represents beauty and love in my own life, is that I am drawn to something that is rejected by both of the predominant "families" to which I've belonged. I hang crosses in my home,  while at the same time standing and telling the truth about myself, a truth which in so many ways has also been rejected by both sides. My house is full of crosses, now.  My bedroom is my church. I let myself have both my essential spirituality and also my taboos, and I'm profoundly, profoundly at peace with my life, as it is.

Shame. Lesson #1

As I work to write these first sentences, I am surprised at the intense, flooding emotion that accompanies the memory of my coming out. I'm so far from that day in 2000, so "healed," and so "evolved" from what I was back then, that I forget sometimes what it was like for me. I remember the shame more than anything else. I remember the devastation of my parents. The hurt in my mother's eyes.  The tears in my father's. I came out to them separately, at my rental home where I'd gone to clean and paint between renters. I hadn't meant to do it that way.  I don't know how I'd meant to do it, exactly.  I just knew it needed to be done, and then, there they were, each stopping in at different times in the day to see if I needed anything, if I needed help.

I was the good girl, growing up.  I was the child they'd never had to worry about.  In fact, I was so piously religious in college that they'd had to ask me to tone it down a little so that they could stand to be around me. I was the good mother, the good daughter, the kind one. I was the one with the amazing testimony of God. I was the victim. My family had been able to hold onto the idea that my soon-to-be ex-husband was the bad guy and the sole reason for our pending divorce. I'd been married nearly 9 years, had three young children, was back in school to become a nurse. I was the one who sacrificed for everyone else. I would never hurt anyone on purpose. I was naive.

A few months before, we'd all gone to my brother's home for a family birthday celebration. At that time, he and his wife were extremely conservative, listening to Rush Limbaugh on the radio, and discussing politics whenever we gathered together, assuming for some reason that we all agreed with their political points.  Somehow we got talking about the "gay" agenda. Up until a year before, I'd remained active in my church, but I'd been asking questions. New questions. Things I'd never been willing to ask or explore before, for fear of possibly straying too far from the only religion I'd ever known, or from my close, enmeshed family who wanted to stay together "forever."  I'd never let myself open my mind or heart to the possibility of loving a woman, or of doing anything that was contrary to what I believed was God's will, so what I encountered, through the course of that heated discussion that day at my brother's home was both uncomfortable and surprising to me. As he and my family exchanged what I deemed to be ignorant, unkind, and bigoted comments about "those people," I had the distinct thought, "They just don't know that they are talking about me." The discussion was about adoption, and about not allowing "those people" to adopt, and as I began to speak, began to counter some of their thoughts with my conflicting ideas, I actually said something about the law affecting people like me. I wasn't entirely conscious of what I was saying or where it was leading me. I'd had years of practice keeping myself invisible, even from myself. My father, who practiced law, caught my reference and immediately thought that I was referring to my new status of "single," because of the new law in our state which prohibited unmarried adults, living together in a household, to adopt a child. The law affected more than the gay community. It affected all unmarried "partners" whether gay or straight, but it had been expressly drafted to prevent gay couples from adopting children, or non-biological gay parents from being able to adopt their partner's biological child. My father turned to me and said, "This law doesn't affect you.  You're not in danger of losing your children.You are their biological mother and they have a father. Why would you be worried about adopting?"

What was key for me that night was not the specific issue of adoption. I wasn't worried about adopting.  What I was doing was more important. I'd inadvertently named what I'd been holding below the surface for years. I realized that night that I identified as being more like "those people" than like my family.  It was a startling discovery, not because it was new but because it was the first time I'd let myself really see it. I'd like to say it was freeing in that moment, but it wasn't. I put it back to sleep for a few more months. I was very good at putting my truths to sleep. Later, after coming out, I'd think back and be able to see so many other moments like that in my life, moments I'd glossed over or ignored, moments when I'd touched something real and deep inside me, but had shut it down quickly, knowing on some unconscious level what it would mean to let it be seen. 

What was also key about that night and it's direct connection to my coming out was the thought I'd had that my family was only saying those intolerant things because they didn't know they were talking about me. This was my naive belief that led me to so nonchalantly blurt out the truth to each of my parents a few months later.  Somehow, in my joy at discovering the truth about myself, and in my relief at finally being able to open up and have what I considered to be a truthful and honest relationship with my family, I forgot what they believed, and I overlooked how they might feel when I shared myself with them. I honestly thought that they'd see immediately that they had been wrong all along. "Oh," they'd say, "We didn't know that we were talking about our own beloved, kind and amazing daughter.  Now that we know we'll be more careful about what we say in the future."  Sorry. What??

What happened instead on my coming out day was that I suddenly became one of those people. In the exact words of my mother, who told me that the only hope for my children was that I give them to her to raise, I'd become one of "the dregs of society, in the same category as drug dealers and ex-cons."  I just had no idea, she said, of how society would see me. My children would be outcasts and would have no friends. They would end up turning to drugs and alcohol and the "parking lot crowd" to try to fit in (they were 7, 4, and 2 at the time). All this was on the second day. The first day was worse, because that was the day of grief.

I'd made a bad decision, coming out on that day. I'd arranged to spend the night at my parents house, which was near my rental.  They were watching my children for me while I worked to make the house livable for the next set of renters.  I'd chosen to speak to my father and mother, each alone.  Each had said a few things then left me to continue working on the house.  My father had asked me if I was sure, and had mostly looked at the ground, kicking at an old mat on my back porch step while I talked.  My mother had cried, and told me that it meant she had failed, and started berating herself for not holding more family activities when we were younger, when she'd had the chance.  All of that was hard.  I knew they'd have a hard time understanding but I'd thought I could "hold" their hands through it, walk them through it somehow.  I had not anticipated the depth of their emotion and anguish.  I had not anticipated my own. I didn't feel like my mother's failure. In fact, just a couple of days before, she'd been praising me for my strength and courage, for divorcing and going to school full-time, working and taking care of my children. She'd called me a good mother. The flip-flop was so sudden and extreme that I could hardly follow it.  I was confused.  This was not what I had expected. I was still holding on to a little balloon of hope and anticipation, thinking this was the key to having a closer relationship somehow. I was finally telling them the truth and I thought that would make things better. I'd blamed myself for the fact that I didn't feel close to them. I'd accused myself of holding back a part of me that they might want to know. By this time I was dating a woman, and I was ecstatically in love. I wanted to share it with them, the way my sisters shared their boyfriend stories and brought boys home for Christmas.  I don't know why I thought this would be possible. I'd never felt this way about my ex-husband. I'd never been able to express myself in this way to my family, so this was new and exciting for me, and I'd been hiding it.  

When I walked into the house that night, the mood was so somber.  By now, my parents had told my sisters.   My father sat down across from me at the table and cried.  He shared his beliefs with me, told me that I'd never have a hope of getting to the highest kingdom of heaven, that I was lost.  I couldn't cry with him.  I didn't know how to respond.  He asked me if someone in church had hurt me and if that was why I was doing this. I assured him that no one had hurt me. I told him that I didn't believe the same way anymore.  I was kind, but firm. I was firm. After that, everyone wandered around crying and talking about me as if I wasn't in the room, as if I had died. "I remember that her dark curly hair, and those cheeks.  Remember her sweet little face?"  It was surreal, but I couldn't access emotion. I couldn't get angry and put my kids in the car to go home. I was paralyzed. I went to bed in their basement guest room after tucking in my kids, and I felt frozen. I couldn't cry, couldn't move.  My therapist had given me an image to help me through rough times which I had never used up until then. She'd told me to imagine myself buried in rose petals, and when someone said something unkind to imagine the rose petals catching the words before they could get to me.  My family wasn't being intentionally unkind.  They were doing all that they knew how to do in that moment, and yet I'd never before experienced anything so devastating as watching them mourn me while I was still alive, sitting next to them, talking out loud to them but not being heard. I don't know that I'll ever experience anything quite like it again in my lifetime. I can't imagine anything harder than that night, knowing how much I'd hurt them but also knowing that I couldn't make it right. I couldn't take it back. I'd awakened from this long, sleepy coma, and there was no way to go back to that innocent place.  I wrapped myself in rose petals to absorb their sadness and mine, and finally fell asleep.

I wish now that I hadn't been so alone in my journey, that I'd sought out friends and support before coming out. My new love had left for 9 weeks of basic training.  I knew exactly three gay people. My new "girlfriend," one college professor (suspected, but not confirmed), and a young guy at work who was still trying really hard to not be gay, planning how he could marry a woman who was so gorgeous that he'd HAVE to be attracted to her forever, and then he could stay in his religion and raise a family. I had  no phone numbers of people I could call.  I knew nothing. I knew I loved being with my girlfriend, and that I wanted a closer, more authentic relationship with my parents. And that was it.

Starting With a Two-Letter Word

I've never been a very good blogger, though I have been known to occasionally bore, or blast, my friends with the rare political rant on Facebook. The ranting is new. I turned 40-something and suddenly found my voice. Being a bad blogger is old, and is most likely a product of my lazy habits and some sad, intolerant ideas. Until a couple of years ago, I believed that only sweet, religious, stay-at-home moms with chubby, photogenic toddlers had time to blog, and since I was not one of those (or, I should say, was no longer one of those), I steered clear of the venue, preferring to be judgmental from a quiet distance.  Then, for awhile, I tried posting my poetry to a sad little blog I created for only that.  No comments. No toddler pictures.  Just poems.  And no readers.  Once I started to actually get onto poetry forums and submit pieces for publication, I realized that having a poetry blog was bad for poets, since any poem that could be Googled could be considered to have already been published and would be rejected for actual publication. So, I ended my very short blogging career.

But, here I am now, aware of my weaknesses and ready to try again. After years of being the quiet, nice girl, it turns out that I have things to say.  

Last week, I read a blog post in which a man came out as bisexual. What was odd was that I found this to be so odd. When I first read that he was "coming out," I assumed he was coming out as gay. Gay people come out. Bisexual people do many things, but in my world, they don't come out. I guess in my world, they do whatever they need to do to fit in.  Perhaps they "pass."  Or maybe, in my world, they "choose."  Or they embrace their bi-sexuality and join swinger groups, or they are polyamorous.  I've been telling people for several years that I'm bisexual, and yet, it never occurred to me that I needed to actually come out, and here is why: because on some unconscious level, I've been buying into the predominant cultural idea that since I "went back" and dated a man (after 10 years of almost exclusively dating women--which came after 9 years of being married to a man--which came after.... etc., etc., etc.), that I no longer really could lay any sort of claim to being part of the local LGBTQ community.  It doesn't matter that I loved my female partners, or that I was the leader of a prominent gay and lesbian parents group for years, or that I was actively involved with the Human Rights Campaign and local political groups, or that I helped build floats for the Pride parade on which my children unashamedly rode with me. Just like it didn't matter to my religious family and friends that I was the very same daughter, sister, mother, student, worker, community activist, friend I had been a few hours before I told them I was dating a woman. Coming out is coming out. I lost many close family relationships when I came out as a "lesbian" and then lost many of my "new" family relationships when I "went back" to men. 

Of course, I follow the community from the sidelines.  I'm FB friends with the local Pride Center.  I post little videos about supporting gay marriage (From the perspective of my very few remaining gay friends, I'm doing this as a "hetero" supporter, from the outside looking in, since I'm not actually gay). I have a few of my old friends from my "lesbian days" scattered as acquaintances, here and there on my social networking friend lists. And I've made new friends. Swinger friends. Polyamorous friends. Good old-fashioned, heterosexual friends (to the joy and delight of my religious parents).  I even got on twitter and for awhile followed a few BDSM groups (though I haven't "dabbled" in that for many years), as well as some spiritual enlightenment groups, and tantra groups.  I've stuck my toe into so many sexually-identified communities over the past few years that I'm not sure anymore if I'm going or just plain coming.  Mostly, I guess I've just been searching. 

I find it ironic that my former gay friends now categorize me in the outsider category--that category of people who will never understand what it's like to be gay.  My initial coming out was, I believe, every bit as painful and challenging as any I've heard described.  My decision to date a man I fell in love with was nearly as stressful and agonizing.  I knew that many of my closest friendships would likely end. Dating a man served to validate for my family their untrue belief that the 10 years prior to "coming back" really had been "just a stage."  It also let them know that I really WAS making a choice all along. This was painful for me. I'd fought alongside my lovers and friends, advocating and educating about the research, supporting a genetic basis for homosexuality. I've maintained that whether it is spoken or not, this is the real threat to my gay friends, and to any potential female (lesbian) lovers.  More than the fear that I might leave them for a man, or the idea that I'm one of those "lucky ones" who can date anyone in the room so I should back off and let others have a chance to find love (???!!...a subject for another post), what I think most upsets the LGTQ community groups is that the world can look at people like me and justify the harm that is done them... well, to all of us who live a non-conforming or non-traditional lifestyle.  The bigots of the world can point to me and say that being with a woman is a choice and generalize my ability to choose to include any woman who loves another woman.  I know that for many people, it really is not a choice.  The world can say that being gay can be cured, because people like me can "go back."  I know what kind of torture comes of that line of thinking.  I would never choose to be the "banner" for such horrific beliefs and actions, and it pains me to think that being bisexual and living as a bisexual human, loving individuals of either gender, might somehow contribute to the justification of bigotry or hatred.  I live and advocate for love and tolerance.

So, without meaning to be, I am a threat to either side.  I threaten my religious family members who either have to claim that I am eternally damned or are called to question the core of their beliefs... which in so many ways give them hope and great comfort.  I threaten my gay and lesbian friends who need the world to know that they can't choose or change their sexual orientation, and that their love is valid and should be legally protected.  I am rejected by both groups.  Yet, I face the same bigotry, feel the same fear, recognize the same limitations for myself and my lovers as most of my gay friends.  And, every time I want to date someone, I have to come out again. Every time I take someone home to meet my family, I have to prepare what I will say, and how I will present this new relationship. I've been told by individuals I'm meeting for the first time that if I want to "date" them, I must immediately give up my former friendships, walk away from people I dearly care about.  It's bizarre and disorienting, and painful.

What I've always thought I wanted was a healthy, long-term, monogamous relationship with a best friend whom I dearly love.  But, I'm no longer like the traditional monogamous, heterosexual people I see all around me. I am faithful.  I expect fidelity. But I have a non-traditional perspective, and a list of non-traditional sexual experiences which cannot be hidden. Because I'm not accepted into either the homo or hetero communities, and because I've not found a comfortable niche within the polyamorous or swinger communities, I often feel that I belong nowhere, at least nowhere that is explainable, or comfortable for many of the people who currently are part of my life. 

After I read about the man who came out as bisexual, I got online and started reading what people were saying about being bisexual. I found out that my experience is much more universal than I thought. I've been expecting myself to choose one way or the other, and I've been allowing myself to be marginalized by a community that really knows better, having themselves been so marginalized.  I've known these things.  I've even said these things.  But I've stood back and done nothing about it.  I've been "passing," which for a time I believed would bring me relief, but it has only brought more confusion.

Several months ago, I took a step back from dating (Whoa! The hilarious stories of my forays onto Match.com and E-Harmony are subjects for another post), and a step back from my friends (mostly swingers because that has been the most comfortable niche I've found since losing my ties to my gay and lesbian friends), and a step back from parties, bars, and dating sites, to address a deep depression that had started setting in.  I knew that I needed some time to turn inward, to find out what it is I really want for myself, both in and out of relationships. As I've turned inward, what I can now look back and see is that, in order to belong to whatever "inner circle" I was striving to fit in with, I've chosen to sell or give away some other part of myself. If I am to live authentically, then that must stop.

I am now my own inner circle.  I'm part of a spiritual practice which is supportive.  My children are nearly grown and have turned out to be very tolerant and loving human beings who can talk openly about these issues, and who understand sexual fluidity. Some of my family members have come around again and though they'd prefer that I only date men, they know that I am someone who will openly love whomever I love. I am strong and feeling good again. I know now that being bi-sexual doesn't have to mean being promiscuous, or being the Unicorn, or being sexually available in ways that aren't consistent with what I want from my closest relationships.  Being bi doesn't mean being someone's other lover, or someone's fantasy "adventure."   

And as I blog, part of what I want to explore is what it is that has caused me to stay distant from my local GLBTQ community which, whether they like it or not, still has that glaring "B" as part of the mix.  I'm the B. Not okay in the world I grew up in. Not okay in the world I raised my young children in.  I'm the byword. I'm the bi-word.  And if I can't find a home within the communities that exist here now, then maybe it's time that I create one.