[eleven] Superman's Dead
Oct. 4th, 2010 04:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jsemIt's late Thursday afternoon and I am having a conversation that I did not intend to have, not now, not today. This is not the right time. But that assumes that there will be a right time, doesn't it? I have long since decided that, when it comes to some things, no matter how important, you will always find excuses for why not to do them but they have to be done some day.
Certainly this is not the best time. My girlfriend has only been gone for a few minutes. After spending the last week stuck within the eye of a shared storm, we've weathered the second round and come out with scars healing and rain still in our eyes. She wanted me to leave with her. I thought about it but I couldn't. I have work the next day, amongst other things, and I have to clean up the rest of the mess that our tornado has made. Which brings us back to the conversation of the moment, the result of coming to a point where cleaning becomes messier than how things were to begin.
In the beginning, I'm just trying to explain some things. It never matters how many times you try to lay it out for them. There are just some things that some parents will never quite understand, particularly when it comes to how those things directly affect their children. Depression is one of them. My mother has experienced her own depression at tremendous levels before but never so consistently at a degree where any sort of medical treatment was required. Even with anti-depressants in my system, even with anti-depressants working, I am stuck on a vicious cycle. My mood doesn't often swing wild anymore but my lows are still low. When I get down, I go deep. I have to explain that my girlfriend is the same way, only with even lower lows and no outside chemicals to stretch those calm times out the way that I do.
That's where it starts. I'm explaining. Depression. Cycles. Moods. Their causes.
My job is giving me hell. Recently I've gone from full time to part time to barely ever working at all without any real warning. Now that my summer part time job is almost over, I'm not even making enough money to pay my bills. I'm frustrated. I'm angry. This is supposed to be my primary source of income. When I'm told that I'll get more hours, be called in on more days, I can't trust those words to be true because I've heard them all before. People I used to like are showing their true colors and those colors are ugly muddy swirls in the puddles that gather around the floor drains. I don't like it. I can't stand it. I can't afford it. And here I am, trying to go back to school. Here's hoping I can get my other loans deferred if I go through with this. Here's hoping I can get enough hours and odd jobs elsewhere to scrape by. I've been out in the big bad real world for a few years now and not a whole lot seems to be getting better. I'm just getting more exhausted and disillusioned by the second, unlike my sister, which is a whole new can of worms because she is the dreamer that I used to be with a twist of political and worldly observation that I never had. Now she's gone off to help other people, my sister, my fellow, my familial confidante, and I'm left here with parents who are having a difficult time adjusting and an adopted sister who is about to tip the balance and move back home again and a family that is trying so hard to suture gaping holes left by hatred and betrayal and now it's time for the family reunion and I have to go there alone, alone with these people, where I have to be someone else, never myself, because I don't want to be alienated but no one knows that I'm queer, that I like girls, that I'm not a girl. There you have it. There, I've said it.
I am not a girl.
I have no control over my words, no more than I have control over the truth that's rooted to them, no more than I have control over the panic that floods into my head and chest once that statement has escaped.
I am not a girl.
My mother doesn't even pause. She just asks me what I mean. So the panic gushes out as I babble my explanation. While I'm grateful for how calm and curious she seems, I know deep down that it's not going to last. This is the impact reaction. The blow has been struck, it simply hasn't had time to sink in. I explain in what eventually becomes a stream of slow, careful, unstuttered words. She asks questions and I do my best to answer.
I am not a girl.
In the end she decides that we should continue this conversation once Dad gets home, because he'll probably understand it better than she will and that way I won't have to say it all twice. I go upstairs, to the safety of my bedroom and of my computer and of quiet messages back and forth with my girlfriend. Mom stays downstairs and does whatever it is my mother does to think.
When Dad gets home, Mom fills him in as best she knows how and then they call me down for dinner. We make pizzas. We talk about other things. We sit down together to share a meal. Over-dinner conversations with my father always mean it's time to drink a beer. He doesn't always ask me if I want one when he goes to get his own. I don't know if he consciously determines which nights I'm most likely to need one or if it's just a part of our bond, just proof of how well he knows me, and his subconscious urges him to make the offer at just the right time. A good beer is relaxing, calming. It's a bouncer at the punk rock concert of my mind, catching all of the fears that try to surf into the spotlight and keeping my confidence safe at center stage. Just the act of taking my first sip is enough to soothe me and that's when the serious conversation begins.
I was right about my mother's calm before the storm. That was just the impact. Now that she's had more time, now that I'm relaxed and more collected, her panic has set in instead. She has things to say now, more questions to ask, fears that may or may not ever be assuaged. Meanwhile, Dad is quiet, just listening, only speaking when the communications begin to otherwise break down. It is going to be an interesting night.
In order to understand my mother, one must first understand that she is a championship worrier. She is an optimistic pessimist, always hoping for the best but expecting the worst in almost every situation. In her worst moods, she can sling blame like nobody's business. In her best, she will offer the smallest, most potent kindnesses when they are least expected but most needed for you to hold your head high and endure. My mother is the sort of mother who tries her damnedest to always put her children before herself but, as is the way with most people who have a particularly keen sense of social consequences, she doesn't always succeed.
When it comes to tonight's revelation, Mom's biggest worry is "What will people think?" She doesn't worry about the opinions of her family very much anymore. Those worries mostly stopped when I was outted as a lesbian. Family is family. They will accept you or they won't. That is their problem, not yours. By and large, her worries are more social than that. It's not her family that worries her, it's her church. How will she explain to them that she doesn't have three daughters anymore but two daughters and a son? Our denomination as a whole is rather conservative, even if our specific church is extremely progressive. I don't know whether she's being honest or she's just trying to play the guilt card when she says that she doesn't know if she could ever feel comfortable there again, even if the congregation was accepting and supportive. She says she knows that it's selfish but it's true. I've thought about this myself, of course. I'm not the most religious person in the world but our church has meant a lot to me and done a lot for me and it hasn't exactly been the easiest decision to make, potentially alienating myself from these people who have made such a difference in my life. My pastor knows that I'm queer, though, and I feel safe in saying that there's at least a 95% chance of him accepting me no matter what. That's just the sort of person he is and that is the important part for me.
Of course, once all of her social worries are aired, it's the selfish ones that crop up next, the typical parental responses. "Did we do something wrong?" I don't even have to say anything to most of these reactions because my dad beats me to it. They didn't do anything wrong. They did exactly what any good parents do. They raised their children and let them become the people they were meant to become. He slips and calls me a daughter and that sets her off again because it doesn't matter what either of us tell her, she simply cannot disconnect any part of my biology from my personality. I am the daughter she bore. In her mind, what I am is the most integral part of who I am. I am her little girl, her first daughter. For the first time ever, she admits to me that even while she proudly denied that there was any truth in other mothers saying that I would grow out of my boyish stage, that I would eventually want to wear cute bras and tight shirts and short skirts and make-up, she always hoped just a little that they were right. Instead, I wear men's underwear and bind my breasts, dress in a suit and tie for Easter, joke that the closest I'll ever get to a skirt is a kilt and maintain a strict belief that make-up is only necessary when I'm in costume. My sister made all of the predicted changes. She is the girly-girl and I am the son that my parents never thought they had.
The conversation ends because my mother can't take anymore. She's choking up and has to leave the room before she bursts into tears. I know that she feels alone in all of this. My sister has long since accepted me and my father, while a little bit confused and definitely worried, is undeniably on my side. Once Mom's left the room, Dad and I sit at the table and finish our beers. We trade a few quips, as we usually do, and then he comes around to hug me and tell me that he'll help me in any way that he can. I don't know what to say aside from thank you and we have a moment of odd silence between us before falling back into the safety net of our decidedly father-son nonsense. Mom comes back out, red in the face with swollen eyes and a husky voice to hug me and reassure me that, no matter what, she still loves me and she'll accept whatever decisions I make.
The night has, admittedly, gone far better than I had initially expected.
It is mid-afternoon on Saturday, two days after our initial conversation, and I am at the top of the world. My dad and I have climbed to the cliffs at the camp where my mother's family reunion is held and we discuss everything, just the two of us, as we look out over the lake and the trees. It's obvious from the things he has to say that he's done some research now. His questions and comments are pointed but not prying. When it's all said and done, I'm content with the outcome and I muse to myself, as I choose the hard way down like I chose the hard way up, that transitioning is an awful lot like mountain climbing. It doesn't matter how many people have blazed the trail before you. Sometimes the trees get too thick, nature changes things around, and once you hit the rocks, all anyone can do is guide you through the technicalities of choosing what move to make next and offer to catch you if you start to fall. Ultimately, you just have to hope that someone will hold on to your rope while you're left to find your own way.
It is Monday afternoon and I have gone through the catalog of doctors who take my insurance to make a list of clinical social workers, psychologists and professional counselors who specialize in my areas of need. Tomorrow, I will try to call the first one once I've submitted my financial aid request. I have a long way to go but it's time I was on my way.
Certainly this is not the best time. My girlfriend has only been gone for a few minutes. After spending the last week stuck within the eye of a shared storm, we've weathered the second round and come out with scars healing and rain still in our eyes. She wanted me to leave with her. I thought about it but I couldn't. I have work the next day, amongst other things, and I have to clean up the rest of the mess that our tornado has made. Which brings us back to the conversation of the moment, the result of coming to a point where cleaning becomes messier than how things were to begin.
In the beginning, I'm just trying to explain some things. It never matters how many times you try to lay it out for them. There are just some things that some parents will never quite understand, particularly when it comes to how those things directly affect their children. Depression is one of them. My mother has experienced her own depression at tremendous levels before but never so consistently at a degree where any sort of medical treatment was required. Even with anti-depressants in my system, even with anti-depressants working, I am stuck on a vicious cycle. My mood doesn't often swing wild anymore but my lows are still low. When I get down, I go deep. I have to explain that my girlfriend is the same way, only with even lower lows and no outside chemicals to stretch those calm times out the way that I do.
That's where it starts. I'm explaining. Depression. Cycles. Moods. Their causes.
My job is giving me hell. Recently I've gone from full time to part time to barely ever working at all without any real warning. Now that my summer part time job is almost over, I'm not even making enough money to pay my bills. I'm frustrated. I'm angry. This is supposed to be my primary source of income. When I'm told that I'll get more hours, be called in on more days, I can't trust those words to be true because I've heard them all before. People I used to like are showing their true colors and those colors are ugly muddy swirls in the puddles that gather around the floor drains. I don't like it. I can't stand it. I can't afford it. And here I am, trying to go back to school. Here's hoping I can get my other loans deferred if I go through with this. Here's hoping I can get enough hours and odd jobs elsewhere to scrape by. I've been out in the big bad real world for a few years now and not a whole lot seems to be getting better. I'm just getting more exhausted and disillusioned by the second, unlike my sister, which is a whole new can of worms because she is the dreamer that I used to be with a twist of political and worldly observation that I never had. Now she's gone off to help other people, my sister, my fellow, my familial confidante, and I'm left here with parents who are having a difficult time adjusting and an adopted sister who is about to tip the balance and move back home again and a family that is trying so hard to suture gaping holes left by hatred and betrayal and now it's time for the family reunion and I have to go there alone, alone with these people, where I have to be someone else, never myself, because I don't want to be alienated but no one knows that I'm queer, that I like girls, that I'm not a girl. There you have it. There, I've said it.
I am not a girl.
I have no control over my words, no more than I have control over the truth that's rooted to them, no more than I have control over the panic that floods into my head and chest once that statement has escaped.
I am not a girl.
My mother doesn't even pause. She just asks me what I mean. So the panic gushes out as I babble my explanation. While I'm grateful for how calm and curious she seems, I know deep down that it's not going to last. This is the impact reaction. The blow has been struck, it simply hasn't had time to sink in. I explain in what eventually becomes a stream of slow, careful, unstuttered words. She asks questions and I do my best to answer.
I am not a girl.
In the end she decides that we should continue this conversation once Dad gets home, because he'll probably understand it better than she will and that way I won't have to say it all twice. I go upstairs, to the safety of my bedroom and of my computer and of quiet messages back and forth with my girlfriend. Mom stays downstairs and does whatever it is my mother does to think.
When Dad gets home, Mom fills him in as best she knows how and then they call me down for dinner. We make pizzas. We talk about other things. We sit down together to share a meal. Over-dinner conversations with my father always mean it's time to drink a beer. He doesn't always ask me if I want one when he goes to get his own. I don't know if he consciously determines which nights I'm most likely to need one or if it's just a part of our bond, just proof of how well he knows me, and his subconscious urges him to make the offer at just the right time. A good beer is relaxing, calming. It's a bouncer at the punk rock concert of my mind, catching all of the fears that try to surf into the spotlight and keeping my confidence safe at center stage. Just the act of taking my first sip is enough to soothe me and that's when the serious conversation begins.
I was right about my mother's calm before the storm. That was just the impact. Now that she's had more time, now that I'm relaxed and more collected, her panic has set in instead. She has things to say now, more questions to ask, fears that may or may not ever be assuaged. Meanwhile, Dad is quiet, just listening, only speaking when the communications begin to otherwise break down. It is going to be an interesting night.
In order to understand my mother, one must first understand that she is a championship worrier. She is an optimistic pessimist, always hoping for the best but expecting the worst in almost every situation. In her worst moods, she can sling blame like nobody's business. In her best, she will offer the smallest, most potent kindnesses when they are least expected but most needed for you to hold your head high and endure. My mother is the sort of mother who tries her damnedest to always put her children before herself but, as is the way with most people who have a particularly keen sense of social consequences, she doesn't always succeed.
When it comes to tonight's revelation, Mom's biggest worry is "What will people think?" She doesn't worry about the opinions of her family very much anymore. Those worries mostly stopped when I was outted as a lesbian. Family is family. They will accept you or they won't. That is their problem, not yours. By and large, her worries are more social than that. It's not her family that worries her, it's her church. How will she explain to them that she doesn't have three daughters anymore but two daughters and a son? Our denomination as a whole is rather conservative, even if our specific church is extremely progressive. I don't know whether she's being honest or she's just trying to play the guilt card when she says that she doesn't know if she could ever feel comfortable there again, even if the congregation was accepting and supportive. She says she knows that it's selfish but it's true. I've thought about this myself, of course. I'm not the most religious person in the world but our church has meant a lot to me and done a lot for me and it hasn't exactly been the easiest decision to make, potentially alienating myself from these people who have made such a difference in my life. My pastor knows that I'm queer, though, and I feel safe in saying that there's at least a 95% chance of him accepting me no matter what. That's just the sort of person he is and that is the important part for me.
Of course, once all of her social worries are aired, it's the selfish ones that crop up next, the typical parental responses. "Did we do something wrong?" I don't even have to say anything to most of these reactions because my dad beats me to it. They didn't do anything wrong. They did exactly what any good parents do. They raised their children and let them become the people they were meant to become. He slips and calls me a daughter and that sets her off again because it doesn't matter what either of us tell her, she simply cannot disconnect any part of my biology from my personality. I am the daughter she bore. In her mind, what I am is the most integral part of who I am. I am her little girl, her first daughter. For the first time ever, she admits to me that even while she proudly denied that there was any truth in other mothers saying that I would grow out of my boyish stage, that I would eventually want to wear cute bras and tight shirts and short skirts and make-up, she always hoped just a little that they were right. Instead, I wear men's underwear and bind my breasts, dress in a suit and tie for Easter, joke that the closest I'll ever get to a skirt is a kilt and maintain a strict belief that make-up is only necessary when I'm in costume. My sister made all of the predicted changes. She is the girly-girl and I am the son that my parents never thought they had.
The conversation ends because my mother can't take anymore. She's choking up and has to leave the room before she bursts into tears. I know that she feels alone in all of this. My sister has long since accepted me and my father, while a little bit confused and definitely worried, is undeniably on my side. Once Mom's left the room, Dad and I sit at the table and finish our beers. We trade a few quips, as we usually do, and then he comes around to hug me and tell me that he'll help me in any way that he can. I don't know what to say aside from thank you and we have a moment of odd silence between us before falling back into the safety net of our decidedly father-son nonsense. Mom comes back out, red in the face with swollen eyes and a husky voice to hug me and reassure me that, no matter what, she still loves me and she'll accept whatever decisions I make.
The night has, admittedly, gone far better than I had initially expected.
It is mid-afternoon on Saturday, two days after our initial conversation, and I am at the top of the world. My dad and I have climbed to the cliffs at the camp where my mother's family reunion is held and we discuss everything, just the two of us, as we look out over the lake and the trees. It's obvious from the things he has to say that he's done some research now. His questions and comments are pointed but not prying. When it's all said and done, I'm content with the outcome and I muse to myself, as I choose the hard way down like I chose the hard way up, that transitioning is an awful lot like mountain climbing. It doesn't matter how many people have blazed the trail before you. Sometimes the trees get too thick, nature changes things around, and once you hit the rocks, all anyone can do is guide you through the technicalities of choosing what move to make next and offer to catch you if you start to fall. Ultimately, you just have to hope that someone will hold on to your rope while you're left to find your own way.
It is Monday afternoon and I have gone through the catalog of doctors who take my insurance to make a list of clinical social workers, psychologists and professional counselors who specialize in my areas of need. Tomorrow, I will try to call the first one once I've submitted my financial aid request. I have a long way to go but it's time I was on my way.