I highlighted that quote in a favorite book because I thought I was the only one who did that on particularly challenging nights and the words soothed my heart. I'd read the novel before, but that particular night I remember pressing a button on my Kindle that showed me several other people had highlighted that passage as well...which made me feel less lonely, less freakish.
Sometimes I mark passages that are the exact opposite of my personal experience, but still deeply affect me...this is what I would think of as a fantastical dream speech that I always wished my mom had given when I tried to come out twenty three years ago. In this part of Touchwood (by Karin Kallmaker), the main character's mother is apologizing for not embracing her more in the beginning:
“I’m glad. It was hard…hard to go inside, but once I was there and I looked around at all the gay people I found myself thinking of them as different. And then it came to me that while I was there I was the one who was different. I knew then, how you—all of you must feel. Made to feel different everywhere you go. And I felt so terrible."
She pauses, then looks at her daughter with tears in her eyes (both of them are crying, actually):
"I don’t care about who you spend your life with as long as the person’s good to you."
My parents, especially my mom, did not react well when I tried to tell them about me decades ago. They were so upset, so full of harsh words and non-acceptance, that I grew scared and, after a week of their continuing to tell me I'd end up out of the family and go to Hell when I died, I gave in and told me I had been "mistaken."
I've tried again over the years to explain to them that I am gay, that I'm not going through a "phrase" (a twenty three year long one?) but they still believe it's a sin and say if I bring up this "nonsense" one more time they don't want to see me anymore.
When I read the scene above I started wondering if parental acceptance of adult gay children is the norm or the wonderful exception. I hear all the time about other gays and lesbians who find warm reception when they come out to their families, but I also still hear the horror stories...those whose parents tell them such horrific things as "I'd rather you were dead."
I thought all my recent misery was coming from the feelings I have for someone I shouldn't. But I realize that, even though it still hurts sometimes, it is going to get better with time and I can certainly understand and accept she cannot ever like me.
But knowing my parents are never going to change their minds and that I feel honor-bound to not be who I truly am so that I can be part of their lives..well that both saddens and weighs me down, not like my cozy comforter I sometimes pretend is one big hug, but like the anvil Wild E. Coyote was always trying to drop on Road Runner.
In the meantime I clutch to those Kindle highlights, not the ones I make as much as the ones I see underlined when I'm pausing at the same passage. Another marked section perfectly sums up the frustration and pain of unrequited love:
Why can't I be happy just knowing her? Why do I have to want more?
Knowing there others are out there who feel the same is better than nothing...and is almost sometimes something.
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