...was i there?

05/10/04

Why I Appreciate My Mother

• family drama • gay like that • remember me Clicking around tonight I have read more than a few Mothers' Day posts. A lot of them are not happy stories at all. It has really served to remind me of how lucky I am to have the relationship that I do with my own mother. It wasn't always that way. We have had our rough times over the years. But there was a period of time that she stood by me that changed that forever. When I first was "coming out" as it were I was going to school in San Francisco. I had started there continuing the patterns I had while closeted in high school, like hanging out with the smoker girls and being all introverted or whatever. But then these two wonderful girls took me under their wing. A club kid with Bettie Page bangs and a very petite lesbian biker. They took me to my first gay clubs, the Castro district, and introduced me to boys. During this time I was never at home and my father was beginning to see what was going on. My mother kept him relatively calm. Soon I had my first "boyfriend". He lived thousands of miles away in Los Angeles, however, and we communicated only by phone and mail (I know, tragic huh? I was young!). Anyway he used to send the most amazing love letters and poems. Really gushy and romantic. One time he sent a beaded necklace that he made where each bead meant something in the poem. It had torn in the mail, giving my parents (who would otherwise have never stooped so low as to open my mail) the perfect opportunity to see why I was getting all this mail from a guy in LA. I wasn't home, but apparently my father went crazy with rage. He didn't want a faggot for a son, and all that. The plan was that I would be thrown out the next day...

...so then what? ›

I had gotten home late (again) and didn't see either of them. The next morning I was eating breakfast before school when my mother handed me my open mail. She told they knew what was going on and warned me to avoid my father. She told me that he had wanted me gone but she got him to agree to let me stay six months (or something). She then threaten me that I'd have to leave immediately if I "flaunted" (being gay) in front of my brother, or if any relatives found out. Later that day when my father got home I was there. All hell broke loose. He said the most amazingly cruel and disgusting things. He may have hit me too. I don't remember. It's like recalling a blurry nightmare. It seems like a bad time, and it was, but from there my mother and I got closer. It was as though she was just showing rage to warn me about how upset my dad was. We began talking. Really talking and doing things. She helped me to talk to my dad. They visited after I moved. When it was time to graduate, both parents and my brother came to the ceremony. I never really saw my family all at once those first two years on my own, but I saw my mother all the time. When I moved in with my friend Patrick she asked if we were "more than friends". We weren't, but she didn't believe me for a while... She had met Richard (and knew who he was to me) before any of my family. She finally got so comfortable as to talk to her friends about me, and her mother and sister. All the relatives who were to never find out! And she slowly brought my father along with her in her quest for acceptance for me. My parents are now my closest friends. They have us (Richard and I) over all the time, and they visit us. We go to dinner often, day trips, they were supposed to go to Mexico too. Richard has even met my grandmother! It really is an amazing thing to have the support of my whole family for my life as it really is, with out "hiding things" from this relative or that friend, or any of that drama that I know is usually the reality in a gay man's life. It is all because of my mother. ‹ wish i hadn't asked!

tagged: gay lesbian parents san francisco biker gay clubs

daniel · the wee hours · 2 comments · ping it

12/09/03

Holiday Chores

• family drama

So, when I worked at a major department store as a visual manager I had an opportunity to bring home some discontinued holiday decor. It was tons of fabulous oversized artificial garland, miles of beautiful ribbon, just great stuff…

So I immediately went to my parents house and regaled my mother with holiday trim. She was the queen of Christmas! Her banister had no match in its lighted pine glory. Add a 12 foot REAL tree, done up in matching red ribbons, and she was the envy of all her neighbors!

And now I have to put all this crap up every year…

...so then what? ›

tagged: holiday parents tree

daniel · lunch time · say it · ping it

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