I took a trip back home and just got back yesterday.
When I say home, I sometimes mean where my dad lives in the Midwest, and sometimes I mean where I live in California.
It’s kind of confusing to think of two places equally as the place where your heart is.
But Jade is here, my cats are here, my stuff is here. Jade says home is where your stuff is. Maybe because her Midwestern home isn’t as welcoming as mine is.
To be fair, my dad’s home isn’t really home any more either. I don’t have a bedroom there filled with stuff from when I was growing up. It is the spare bedroom, and it is mine when I am there, but every single thing that was ever mine has been eradicated from the house. Even down to the boxes deliberately left in his basement years ago. I kicked and screamed at the thought of taking that stuff out, because if I left it there, I’d still have some presence in that house, apart from the couple of family pictures on the wall. But on one of my visits back home, he made me go through my last two boxes and mailed me the things I wanted to keep.
It’s kind of weird to go to this place called home and to know that your father loves you but absolutely does not want to talk about your marriage.
I told my brother, via e-mail, about us getting married legally on June 17, and told him he could tell my dad and stepmom if he wanted. So when I was home, I asked him if he’d told them. Yeah, he said.
“Well, what did they say?”
“Not much. Just ‘We were just talking about that and wondering if they were going to do that.’ “
During my visit, my best friend told me on the phone that I needed to come out to my dad. I told her that he already knows, so it’s not coming out. We just haven’t spoken about it directly, except for accidentally once or twice.
I guess she thinks I should talk to him about it, and force him to start the process of acceptance.
Well, I didn’t ask her. She’s not a lesbian, she hasn’t had to deal with these feelings of rejection and discomfort, both of others and with herself.
And that’s how I feel.
I’m finally getting to the point where I’m more comfortable with my identity as a lesbian and that I don’t think it’s something I need to hide any more. I’m getting less patient with considering how people would feel if I tell them.
But I don’t want to disrupt this relationship I have with my dad. I still am the good child. He still really misses me.
So am I going to force him to talk about my relationship with Jade? Not right now. We’ll talk when we’re both ready, and I don’t know when that is. My stepmom is a little more supportive. If I want to talk about things more directly, I can do it with her.
What I don’t do, however, is pretend that Jade doesn’t exist. I talk about her all the time, and I don’t know if that makes him uncomfortable. I don’t care, to that extent.
I tell him about her plans for law school. I tell him about my plans to move with her, even though it’s going to be difficult. Especially financially.
My dad is still there for me. He doesn’t quite know what to say, and we don’t quite talk about it, but I know things could be a lot worse.
We just keep on, in typical fashion. I took him to lunch, made soup one night. He made one of my favorite dishes and grilled out for the whole family the next day. He took me for a ride in his show car, and we just enjoyed each other.
I wonder if this process would be easier if Jade and I were living back home. Maybe. But I feel like I don’t want to disrupt our equilibrium by pushing the issue. It’ll come in time, or it won’t. I’m not worried about it.
At least I’m not hiding anymore. Dancing around where I sleep in our three-bedroom condo. Pretending that Jade is just a good friend who has stayed with me, as a roommate, for nearly four years. Not pretending that I’m just following a roommate when she goes to school three hours north of here.
Now some of my friends back in the Midwest don’t officially know (and a couple of them now do) but as I talked about moving, they had to know.
And that’s another entry.
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