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.
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.
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