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Thursday, June 25, 2020

Thank You



I want to thank everyone for their wonderful words of advice and encouragement on yesterday’s post. I’m still feeling a bit down and anxious over the argument with my mother. I can’t help it. Family can be so frustrating. I have lived with my agreement with my mother that I made when I came out, which was that I would not tell anyone else in the family I am gay. (I have not lived by the agreement that I would be celibate, that was just taking it too far.) While only my parents know for certain, I am pretty sure my aunt knows. I have a large collection of books that are stored in bookcases at her house. Many of those books are gay fiction or gay history that I had collected over the years. After I moved to Vermont, she took down all my books and built new sturdier bookcases. She then placed all of my books back in the new bookcases. If she didn’t notice a theme, then…. Anyway, I’m pretty sure she knows and doesn’t care. My aunt worked for a dentist that she admired and cared for a lot; he was gay and died of AIDS back in the 1980s. She has always seemed pretty accepting of things like that.

 

My biggest fear is not what my parents would do, but I do fear telling my sister because since she married a complete asshole in 1998, her in-laws have brought her over to the dark side. My sister used to be laissez-faire about most social issues. She just didn’t care, and she was never political at all. However, her husband and in-laws are extremely conservative, homophobic fundamentalists. She becomes more and more like them every year, so I fear if she ever knew I was gay, she would not let me see my niece and nephew. She and they are of that mentality that gay people cannot be trusted with children.

 

My only hope is that the world is different enough for my niece and nephew not to have the same prejudices as their family. They are growing up in a far more accepting world than I grew up in. They are growing up in a time when LGBT couples can get married, and we can’t be discriminated against in our jobs. Things are so vastly different than they were 20 years ago. (I know, there is still much to do, but we are getting there.) I hope they will have a mind for themselves about social and political issues. They aren’t old enough yet to really understand. All they know right now is that they love their Uncle Joe. I get to see the joy and excitement in their eyes when they see me, and I hear it in their voices when I talk to them on the phone.

 

All of my other close relatives have passed away. In fact, yesterday would have been my grandmama’s 97th birthday. I miss her so much. I think if I’d had the courage to come out to her, she would have accepted me for who I am. I may be wrong about that, but she would always listen to reason from me, even when she was unreasonable to everyone else. I had a connection with Grandmama unlike anyone else. If she had accepted me, as I believe she would have, she would also have been my advocate and told my parents they could go straight to hell if they didn’t fall in line. That may just be wishful thinking and a fantasy on my part. I will never know what her reaction would have been, but I have faith she would have accepted me.

 

I will make up with my mother at some point. She will probably have to be the one to call me, and if she does, she is likely to act as if we never argued. Denial is not just a river in Egypt to my mother, it’s a way of life. She has been in denial about my sexuality since she found out I’m gay. I always hoped that one day she would accept me, but she seems to have doubled down and is more homophobic than ever. It goes along with her faith which seems to no longer be the Bible but Fox News. 

 

I have a fervent desire for something to happen that would discredit Trump and Fox News so badly that they would lose all of their support. They do more harm to American than anyone else. I hope that when/if that ever happens that people like Mitch McConnell, Lindsay Graham, Matt Gaetz, Jim Jordan, and all the other Republican idiots go down hard with them. You can also throw in the Rush Limbaughs, Franklin Grahams, and their ilk with it. The hatred in America needs to end, and November is the best time for that to begin to happen.

 

We need to have a great movement that will change the minds of Americans. We need something that will move America away from the right and teach the American people about love and acceptance. I just hope it isn’t a great tragedy. It will probably take the Rapture* coming and no Republicans rising into Heaven, but then they would say it was a liberal conspiracy.

 

 

*By the way, I do not actually believe in the Rapture (an event in which it is believed that both living and dead Christian believers will ascend into heaven to meet Jesus Christ at the Second Coming). It is nothing more than a postmillennialism belief/hoax dreamed up by the 19th-century theologian John Nelson Darby. I use it here in jest. The lawyer I used to work for always joked “I hope I’m standing outside when the Rapture happens. I don’t want to hit my head on the ceiling.”


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7 comments:

  1. Sorry you have had such difficult with family. The truth, however, is you lost your family some time back. You are you. Only you can live your life. Living under their rules removes a large chunk of who you are. That's not love. That's not family. That's tyranny. Toxic relationships are something I have tried to eliminate from my life. Difficult but necessary. Loving someone in the family from afar is OK; up close is another thing. Keep the distance from those who do not allow you to be you. Their own selfishness is controlling them.

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  2. Dear Joe,

    Wow. Still rivers run deep. This was more than a death star orange man argument. This seems a gut wrenching event.
    Please take good care of yourself.

    On the plus side you were blessed with the greatest grandmama and aunt known to man. Your sister sounds like a miscreant monster. Good news here is with here nuptials to "mega asshole" in 1998, your nephew and niece must be in their mid to later teens. They love you and know you are "the coolest uncle." Protect yourself from selfishness and hate as best you can.
    The audacity of the demands you shared take my breath away.

    Remember there is always the nuclear option. You can return home for Thanksgiving with RuPaul and the cast of Queer as Folk in tow. Imagine the dinner conversation.

    Finally...from left field...some medical questions. You've mentioned headache recently. No wonder. You're an instant pot pressure cooker of emotions. Have you had cortisol blood tests taken? You could be off the chart. My final comment is regarding hypothyroidism. There is a huge correlation between it and monster migraine. Here is a link between the two.
    https://nationalheadacheinstitute.com/blog/thyroid-and-migraines-relationship/

    There's problem with hyperthyroidism test results from the two national blood test firms, Quest and Lab Corp. They claim everyone is normal.

    Be your best.

    Alexander

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  3. Alexander,

    My niece and nephew are actually not yet in their teens. My sister always had trouble getting pregnant and so she was married for nearly a decade before my niece was born and it took nearly another decade for my nephew to be born. They are still young an (mostly) innocent.

    I am seeing a neurologist at Dartmouth University's Headache Clinic. The biggest problem is that my insurance will only pay for one headache treatment at a time. My primary doctor checks my thyroid function annually and so far has not found a problem, but I will discuss it with him and with the neurologist at my next appointment. Also, I am currently taking the Aimovig injection monthly. I had tried Emgality, but it was not as effective as we had hoped. It cut down on the frequency fo my migraines, but I was still having too many.

    Thanks,
    Joe

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  4. George,

    Maybe I did lose my family a while back, but I never want to lose them completely. Living 1100 miles away helps a lot in dealing with my family.

    Joe

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  5. Joe:

    Each of us travels through this world at our own pace.

    I say that to say this.

    Just like in Moonstruck when Cher slapped the guy and said "Get over it!"

    I feel the same way regarding you. Think of it this way. Your mother, family are living their lives every day as they see fit without agonizing how they affect others. They are just being.

    You are living your life as you see fit BUT you are wringing your hands, fretting, losing sleep because you are wondering how you fit into their world.

    Get over it! Strong but with much love.

    I used to say to my ex-partner years ago. He worried so much about how he fits into society. I told him I didn't care. I am not doing anything crazy. I am not running around naked. I am not making a fool of myself. I am just being me. If you guess I am gay, I am gay. If you are confused about if I am gay, you are confused. I am just going to live my life as I see fit and treat my fellow man with love and respect. You are not going to dictate if I am going to be wringing my hands, or losing sleep because YOU are uncomfortable about me. Life is to damn short.

    I trust my point came across lovingly. I don't want you coming over and beating my ass. On the other hand, a good rumble can do a body good. But I digress.

    Victor

    XO

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  6. PS-Moonstruck --- "Snap Out Of It!!"

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  7. What deeply distressed me in your previous entry was "I have held off finding someone to spend my life with because I knew she’d never accept him." You have sacrificed the possibility of a union of hearts and minds for the unlikely prospect of maternal approval. In my comments from the time I first found your blog (prior to your dismissal from that school) I have expressed my hope that you could find someone to love and to be loved by. I renew that hope with greater urgency. Make that search a priority! Dear Joe, I want you to be happy. Roderick

    ReplyDelete

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