September 05, 2003
change
That's it.
She wants me to change. Mom wants me to stop being gay and start trying to be straight. She thinks I can, and anything I say or do otherwise is rank disobedience and stubbornness. She wants me to do that because I know (or should know) that being gay is wrong and being straight is right, being gay is weird and being straight is normal, being gay is miserable and being straight is happy, and I should want to do the right, normal, happy thing. She wants me to open my heart, but what she's asking, thought she doesn't realize the extent of it, is for me to rip it out of my chest and hand it to her.
I can't look her in the eye anymore, because I know she'll be able to read it in my eyes. Because if I say what I really want to say, I'll hurt her again, and that means we'll ride the anger cycle another time. I can't take the anger again.
There isn't any "want to be" about it. I figured that out long ago. I don't 'want' to be gay any more than I 'want' to be straight. I simply am. I struggled against it for so long, hating myself for what I was and hating myself for not being able to overcome it like it seemed I should be able to. It was those "gay Christian" websites she excoriates so that freed me from that kind of fruitless denial.
Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.
I'll do a lot for my mom. I love my mother, and I don't want to hurt her. But I will not go back to hiding from my own heart. I will not go back to nighttime prayers, "I don't want to, take it away" sent into the dark with no real hope of response, but no way to stop either. I can't. If, after having come so far out of the shadows, I turn around and go back, I may not come back out this time.
I mean it when I say that if she really tries to make me go through one of those conversion therapies, I think I might kill myself. And the thing is, it wouldn't be self-destruction so much as it would be self-defense.
She says she dreads next Friday, when she sends me off to school. That means she'll be stepping up the pace, trying as hard as she can before she has to let go. And I don't know how much more of this I can really take before exploding and letting the truth out-- that I don't want to try to change because I don't want to die in the attempt, that I don't see that as God's plan for me.
She wants me to change. Mom wants me to stop being gay and start trying to be straight. She thinks I can, and anything I say or do otherwise is rank disobedience and stubbornness. She wants me to do that because I know (or should know) that being gay is wrong and being straight is right, being gay is weird and being straight is normal, being gay is miserable and being straight is happy, and I should want to do the right, normal, happy thing. She wants me to open my heart, but what she's asking, thought she doesn't realize the extent of it, is for me to rip it out of my chest and hand it to her.
I can't look her in the eye anymore, because I know she'll be able to read it in my eyes. Because if I say what I really want to say, I'll hurt her again, and that means we'll ride the anger cycle another time. I can't take the anger again.
There isn't any "want to be" about it. I figured that out long ago. I don't 'want' to be gay any more than I 'want' to be straight. I simply am. I struggled against it for so long, hating myself for what I was and hating myself for not being able to overcome it like it seemed I should be able to. It was those "gay Christian" websites she excoriates so that freed me from that kind of fruitless denial.
Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.
I'll do a lot for my mom. I love my mother, and I don't want to hurt her. But I will not go back to hiding from my own heart. I will not go back to nighttime prayers, "I don't want to, take it away" sent into the dark with no real hope of response, but no way to stop either. I can't. If, after having come so far out of the shadows, I turn around and go back, I may not come back out this time.
I mean it when I say that if she really tries to make me go through one of those conversion therapies, I think I might kill myself. And the thing is, it wouldn't be self-destruction so much as it would be self-defense.
She says she dreads next Friday, when she sends me off to school. That means she'll be stepping up the pace, trying as hard as she can before she has to let go. And I don't know how much more of this I can really take before exploding and letting the truth out-- that I don't want to try to change because I don't want to die in the attempt, that I don't see that as God's plan for me.
# posted by Liadan @ 9:28 PM 
