This has been the most challenging thing of all for us on this crazy wild ride. Falling in love is easy, fun, exhilerating, like taking the best drug in the world. Being with her is nothing but euphoric. It is the pain, reactions, confusion that this ellicits in our family members that brings us crashing back down again.
The first person of our two families to be told about this situation was probably my sister. Well, acutally, she is one of the people that I told about my "girl crush" when I was consumed with butterflies, goosebumps, nausea even, on a minutely basis bcause I couldn't get my girlfiend out of my mind. Shoot, let's call her something here so that she has a name. From now on we will call her Monica. Anyway, I would call my sister, who by the way is a very Christian woman and takes very seriously her walk with Jesus (she is one of the rare ones who really lives it day by day), and tell her "I am totally freaking out! I am practically obsessed with this woman and I can't get her out of my head!" My sister kept saying, "Well, you probably just admire her and you are mistaking that feeling for lust. Maybe you should make friends with her and you will discover that she is just a regular person and all this will go away.....I mean, she is after all, a woman. It's not like you're gay or anything."
So fast forward many months (I swear I am gonna fill you in on that sometime), and my sister and I are talking on the phone about whether or not a should take my newly estranged husband back. To tell the truth, there was a real pull to do that in the beginning. As mean as he was, it was familiar--I knew what that life was, and I knew that finacially I would be taken care of. I also had no idea that Monica would ever want to be with me--after all she was married (some-what happily as far as I knew), and we were close friends at this point, but I always knew I completely insanely in love with her. So I told my sister, "Even if he changed, I don't see how I could go on and be with him.......because I am in love with someone else." And she simply asked me "Is it a man or a woman?" She was very understanding about everything, telling me that while her beliefs were that God did not condone homosexuality, He still loved me and that as long as I loved and accepted Him, she was not concerned for my soul." Let me just tell the whole world right now that I have the greatest sister on the planet! She IS Christianity. She never judges, she simply embodies the type of love that Christ would want us to give to everyone. After all, he dined with prostitutes and tax collectors.
Next was coming out to my mom. Uuuugh! That was pretty bad. First of all, let me say that my mom is also fundamentalist Christian, but is very narrow minded and judging when it comes to her family. She is not so much that way among her friend, but expects greater things from her family. She also has some wierd phsycho obsession with me that I totally can't figure out. It's like some sort of co-dependance. It's completely bizarre and makes things difficult for my sister and for me. My mom is also a mild alcoholic, but in her defense, she is laden with my sweet dad who has Alzheimer's, and I think that if there was ever a time to crave the escape that one can get in a bottle of wine, it would be in the evenings following a long day spent caring for the man who was once the love of your life, who once was a lawyer and now can only recite nursery rhymes. By way of example of just how straight my mother is, she refused ever to watch the movie "Brokeback Mountain" because she doesn't "condone that type of behavior". To which my response was, "I don't condone organized crime, but The Godfather was an excellent movie."
Anyway, I would not have told her about Monica and me until much later, but the trouble is that around January of last year, my estranged husband decided to try to catch me having an affair so that he could blackmail me into taking less of a settlement in our pending divorce. So, he hired a private investigator to spy on me for several weeks. It's funny because I wondered why he was suddenly so interested in having the kids spend time with him.....usually he was too busy to deal with them. But he would schedule time with the kids and then have his PI tail me wherever I went. So to make a long story short, the PI apparently got some comprimising stuff on video. When my ex (heretofor referred to as X --me trying to sound lawyer-y) confronted me with what he had on me, I broke down and admitted that yes, I was in love with her, yes, we were having an affair, and yes, at this point, I am probably gay. This was really hard for me to admit, because first of all, I know that X loved me in the only way that a sick person can, but he loved me nonetheless. And I loved him to some degree. As much as he caused me pain (on purpose), I would have given just about anything at that moment not to hurt him, for this to be painless for him. But there it was in all its truth and intensity.....I was completey and totally in love with Monica.
So, on to my mother. X kept asking me over the next several days, smirking, as if the thought of this was so overwhelmingly amusing, "Have you told your mom yet?" Since X is known to be very reckless and impulsive, I felt the urgency to tell my mother, at least to some small degree, what was happening before he did.
Let me backtrack for a quick moment to say that my mom was at first in favor of my divorce. She had received texts too often "If I die, he did it." and had gotten too many calls from me in tears, scared for my life. I had taken my kids and flown home to her several times over the years, fleeing the abuse. So she was at first very supportive. Then X started talking to her. He had experienced a conversion and had become a believer, something we had all prayed for for years. And my mother was convinced that now that he was a believer in Christ, all would be right and good in our marriage if I took him back. (Turns out he devil and God can in fact coexist in someone's heart--story for another time).
However, as my mom had put it, "Maybe things might work out for you. This breakup has brought X to his knees and he has literally catapulted straight into the arms of Jesus." I said to her simply, "Mom, that is the most wonderful thing. You know I have prayed for that for years, and I care about him and love him and want him to be a follower of Christ, but even so, I can't go back to him. I am in love with someone else and it's Monica." ..............Total silence..............................deep inhale on her end........................slow exhale with accompanying whimper.................."I guess I sort of knew that," she said. The disappointment in her voice was thick, and I immediately felt a heavy barrier go up between us--not slowly, stone by stone, but a massive wall that seemed to suddenly drop out of the sky and thud to the ground with an earthshaking rattle, right smack in between us. That wall is still there......it is late August.
We speak often now on the phone, mom and I. But we didn't speak for several weeks after that day. She would send me emails and texts, but couldn't bring herself to call. When she did begin calling again, she never asked about Monica, not "how is she?", nothing. I tried to be understanding, to realize that she is morally against this love. Monica and I reminded ourselves that we had already had several months to deal with this and that to my mom, this was new information, the death of her dreams of who I would become, almost in a sense the stamp of the Devil Himself on my forehead. And yet, like all children, my heart screamed out for her to celebrate this with me! I had finally found my home--Monica was my soul mate, my best friend, my lover, the person who loved me and built me up, who supported me without reserve, who thought I was beautiful and smart and funny and wonderfrul. She was finally somebody who was FOR me, and not AGAINST me, like X had been for so long. She was my biggest fan! Oh, please Mom, can't you see how happy she makes me???? Can't you see the light that has turned on inside me, after years of a tiny flicker in a terrifying darkness? Don't you want me to be happy?
I have tried to understand my mom's position, but as a mother, I think I would simply want for my daughter to be happy. Of course, I think her life would be easier if she could be happy with a man, but if she finds this spectacular love, this pure unbridled joy, and it is with a woman, I will toast to them both! Things are getting better, mom is coming around. She still doesn't often ask about Monica on the phone, which I know she would if Monica were male, but when she comes to visit, she is forced to see her since in my home, my girlfriend is always wanted. I hope for her sake and the sake of our relationship that she does come around. The fact that I am with Monica now is not negotiable.....it is happening and it makes me happier and more hopeful about life than I have ever been. But I would love to have my mom on board with me.........I miss her.
There's tons more on this "coming out to family" stuff, how my kids are taking it, etc., but I will have to do a "to be cont'd" because my fingeres are tired and I need another cup of coffee and then a lesiurely perch upon the potty to start the morning off right! ;)
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