...and ended up a beast. This is an epicly long personal essay about me being queer and my relationship with my mother. It's definitely still a work in progress, so I'd love any and all feedback.

*NOTE: All the dialogue was in italics before I copy and pasted it, and now isn't...sorry if that causes any confusion, but I'm kinda too lazy too fix it. :] *
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Behind the Boxes of Old Clothes and the Forgotten Fur Coat
It was early summer, though you couldn't tell from looking at the sky, overcast and cloudy as it was. But I swam regardless, head emerging from the water only when I was out of air. The distancing of sound and the rhythm of the movements gave me room to think; with each lap, I tried to work my way through the tangle of contradictions in my head.

My family is big, and our lives chaotic. There is always something going on—people talking, kids screaming, pots banging. And amidst the chaos there has always been stories: stories of crazy neighbors, of ghosts at my grandparents', of childhood misadventures. Against this backdrop of constant movement and noise, silence is noticeable. Where giving every gory, insignificant detail is standard, any attempt to avoid or gloss over is glaringly obvious.
I don't want to sound melodramatic; there are no frightening skeletons in the familial closet, lurking behind boxes of ancient sweaters and forgotten Christmas presents. There's only me here, and I'm still breathing, thank you very much.
I'm gay, see, and closeted.
It's not as if my family is full of fundamentalist crazies or socially conservative Republican die-hards. On the whole, we—they—are a relatively accepting bunch. Just not without exception.

It's a bad choice, my mother had said, just moments before. We just want her to be happy, and she can't be if she's—with a girl. As my hands brushed one end of the pool, my feet pushing off the wall and propelling me through the water, I realized, stomach lurching, that my parents had holes in their perfection, their professed acceptance; my friend Gennie's recent coming out only emphasized that.
I moved through the water at a steady pace, counting each stroke: one, two, three, four. One, two—swerve to avoid my brother's floating toy—three, four. One, two, three, four. I hoped the numbers would grow big enough to swallow my confusion whole, to leave me simply swimming, instead of elbow-deep in what I was sure was a mid-life crisis—one, unfortunately, that could not be fixed with an expensive sports car.
But they didn't, nor did they mask the slight nausea that rolled in my stomach, worrying itself into a tight, heavy knot. Truthfully, I'd been feeling my way around the edges of this hole in their acceptance for a while now—but this was different. Previously firm convictions—and my parents' infallibility—were knocked out from under me, leaving me floundering. Being gay, it seemed, was okay only if you stayed over there; if you were close but not that close, fine. Make the choices you will. But cross that invisible barrier—become one of us instead of one of them—and something shifts.

My first remembered encounter with homosexuality began simply enough: some relative was visiting, and brought along a child, Brandy, who was my age. Brandy can't hear, my mother said. But she's just like you. Be nice; play with her. And she was, and I did. Brandy has two moms, she said. And I never thought to ask where her father was, saying only, brightly, that I wished I had two moms as well.
It was an auspicious beginning gone wrong. To be honest, I didn't realize Brandy's parents were gay until my freshmen year health class, when we had the token gay talk. I made the connection—Brandy's moms were, in fact, lesbians in class; afterwards, I rushed to find my sister and share my epiphany. Instead of being startled, or flustered at all, she stared at me. Of course, Al. Kinda weird, though, huh? Then she shut her locker, gathered her books, and left.
And that was that. As always, there were no discussions or back-story. You got some vague dialogue, and that was it.

I directly followed my mother's firm denunciation of Gennie's “choice” with a round of questioning—nonchalantly, I had hoped. But I never was good at nonchalance.
I asked if she was so sure Gennie's choice was wrong, what she thought about legalizing same-sex marriage, about adoption, about any queer topic I could think of. I was sprawled out on the carpet, looking up at her. I don't remember her exact words, or the ideas she so carefully, thoughtfully phrased. I only remember my normally unrestrained and cheerful mother's sudden reserve.
Her answers were normal, expected: gay couples could get married, adopt. But her eyes made it clear: she pitied them—and she pitied Gennie.
It's just, she said, slowly, there won't be any little Gennies running around, if she keeps up like this. She'll—miss out. On things.
The conversation ended there.

I was still in shock when I slid into the pool, still in shock as I swam lap after lap, trying to grasp the contradictions, the faulty logic behind my mother's justifications. I had needed her to tell me, concretely, in black or white terms, what she thought of Gennie—of me. I wanted good or bad, right or wrong; instead, I got a shady gray area. Concern and pity—misguided sympathy—served only to cloud the matter. And I could not wrap my head around a solution, no matter that I stayed in the water till my fingers pruned, emerging exhausted and no more certain than when I started.

I came out to her eventually, a year or so later, when the secret was buzzing incessantly around my mind, a steady pressure against my ribs. I had gotten into the practice of reciting the words in an endless, internal mantra. Mom? I would think, when we were alone, driving or walking the dogs, I kinda-think-I-might-be-gay. Even in my head, I had to rush to say it before my imaginary courage failed me.
And then, one day, it simply slipped out. Mom? My voice faltered, and she must've known something was going on, because she looked up immediately, concerned. And when I shrugged and said quickly, never mind, she wouldn't let it go. She badgered and poked and prodded like any decent mother until, shakily, I told her.
I cried when I did; she hugged me, and told me it was okay. She still loved me. We talked and she asked a series of questions—how did I know? How long? Did it start with someone in particular? I answered awkwardly, avoided the tough spots, the “not-quite-a-legitimate-relationship” arguments she was getting at. This was more than good enough for now. After all, as she'd said, You're only fifteen. Things could change.
As we walked back to the house, she sang me lullabies.

We had talked about the next step that night—about telling my father, my siblings—but it never materialized. I don't blame her, really; I was still unsure of myself, and once the pressure was gone, I let myself be pushed back into the closet. She was right, I told myself, about the change thing—I was only 15. How could I know?

I can count on one hand the number of times in the following two years we talked about me being gay; I can recall clearly the hesitation that marked each encounter, each vague conversation. We drew up unwritten rules: explicit words—gay, lesbian, queer—were to be avoided at all costs; one should never be sure in one's “decision”—confusion and ambiguity were the best routes to go.
Coming out, I discovered, was not the climax of the story between my mother and me. It didn't actually change much of anything; I was still unsure, and I was still closeted—now more than ever. My mother, privy to all other aspects of my life, was carefully excluded from this part. She wanted only to help me, to guide me—but they say the way to hell is paved with good intentions.

It was a five-week summer program, a residential program of relatively intense academic caliber, and I had meant to come out during week one. It hadn't happened, though, at least on a scale beyond my writing teacher and one of my better friends. I went to the Gay-Straight Alliance meeting anyway.
It was held during dinner, in a room off the main dining hall. There was only a handful of people at first, most of us clustered awkwardly around a few tables. But the stream of people coming in was steady; by the time an intern, Emmet, started the meeting, there were more than 30 people there. We began with introductions; Emmett went first. Obviously, he said, I'm Emmett, and I'm here because I'm gay.
Surprisingly few people were GLBT; most explained they were there to be supportive, or because they wanted to find out more. In the introductions before mine, not a single student had said they were queer.
I was sitting in the middle of the room, and the process was slow; I couldn't help but feel queasy—although that could've as easily been from the unidentifiable vegetables I was eating as from anything else. I was a mess. Should I come out? That'd mean doing crisis control and rushing to find Julia before she discovered her roommate was gay from someone else. Various other complications—what would my yoga partner think? Would my master teacher care?—swam suddenly to the forefront of my mind. Yet, the idea of not being honest about my sexuality at a GSA meeting played heavily on my sense of the absurd.
The line of introductions crept slowly toward me; the kid next to me spoke and sat down with a thump. It was my turn.
I stood up, cleared my throat. I'm Alli, I said, flushing under the eyes trained on me, and I'm gay, so this is all kinda important to me. I fell back into my seat as I finished talking, reaching for my water, hand shaking slightly.
I was out.

It was great to be out. None of my friends—even my roommate, who I had convinced myself would react badly—particularly cared one way or the other. Yet, joking with them about being gay, or the way it would casually slip into conversation, left me subtly, sublimely happy. Mentioning I was gay no longer left me agonizing in a corner over the various repercussions; life wasn't perfect, but it was a definite improvement.

A few weeks after I came home from my summer program, my mother asked me if I was still “confused.”
Yeah, I said, keeping my eyes trained on the ground. I am. I didn't tell her that, for the most part, I was not confused at all—I knew I wasn't straight. But explaining that would take longer than the length of our walk.
After a few moments of silence, she asked, hesitantly, Have you told anyone?
Uh, yeah. I told Julia, at St. Paul's.
You did? Her voice caught slightly; she didn't even try to mask her surprise. How did she...react?
I wanted to answer defiantly, to prove to her that not even my roommate, social conservatism and all, was bothered by it. But I kept my eyes focused on the ground. She didn't care.
Oh. Did you—tell anyone else?
The answer she wanted was clear. No, I lied.

I wasn't thinking when I answered her, wasn't analyzing the good or bad. I was simply trying to get away—my mind shut down, I was entering fight-or-flight mode. I couldn't stay to fight it out. She had always told me to pick my battles—though admittedly, she was generally referring to the World War III-like atmosphere that characterized relations between my siblings and me in our early years. The lesson, however, had sunk in.
I was choosing my battles carefully, whether she realized it or not, and it was a Cold War between us.

The “good” at the beginning of her sentence was implied. Well, she said, I don't think you should—tell people either. At school. You wouldn't want them to get the wrong idea of you, to—to label you.
I was no longer floundering in the blank spot of my parents' acceptance; the lines in the sand had been drawn. I stood on one side, they on the other.
But they didn't know that yet. So, Of course not, Mom, I mumbled, and walked faster. I couldn't tell her that I'd been happy when people knew. That they were getting, for once, the right idea, not the wrong one.
Instead, I walked home in front of her, mind entirely blank. I wasn't ready for this conversation.

Sometimes I wonder if she had dreams for me: of marriage, a family, a husband. I wonder if me coming out destroyed those dreams, or if she still hopes that she can guide me onto the path of a white picket fence, 2.5 kids, and a golden retriever.
I don't begrudge her that fantasy; for the most part, that's been her life, if you substitute a lab for the golden retriever and add a kid and a half. And she's been happy with it. It makes sense she'd want the same for me.
But that is, I think, the fundamental problem between us: we're different. As a kid, people always said I looked like her, but now I'm hard-pressed to find the curve of her nose in my own, or her smile caught on the edges of my mouth. When it boils down to it, we're two fundamentally different people. She's cheerful, a people person, always willing to feed people and play the host; I'm more reserved, antisocial. And yet, these differences have never come between us: different I may be, but I've always been her daughter, even when I'd rather bury my nose in a book than socialize or learn to cook.
My sexuality, however, is different. I'm gay and she's straight. I have effectively removed myself from her realm of experience, her protective bubble. She'll never quite understand what it is I go through, and honestly, I think this scares her; her concern for me is, for the most part, motivated by her love for me, and worry about what lays outside of her own experience.
And yet, even with the justifications, I can't really forgive her. I know she's my mother, and I know she's supposed to worry about me—but sometimes, I wish her worry would take on a different form. It's hard enough to have to confront other people's unintentional homophobia, never my mind my mother's; knowing she's only doing it in an attempt to keep me safe doesn't negate the fact that she's doing it.
But we're close, and we always have been. This makes it harder, I think; I can't really be mad at her, or even frustrated, in any sense other than the abstract. I know I should be angry, and on some level, I am. A friend of mine maintains that she will always angry with my mother, indignantly informing me that no one should have to go through this; but it's not as if this is the only topic or conversation or connection between my mother and me. I can't very well simplify our relationship to one sticking point.
And let's be honest: it takes two to tango. This situation is as much my fault as her; after all, even given the perfect situation to bring up my queerness, to have a discussion with her, I'm not sure I would. Bringing it up in a conversation is even harder than sustaining anger; if I couldn't stand her, or was furious with her, maybe then I'd be able to say something—but I can't even imagine it. I don't think there'd be a fight; there wouldn't be yelling, or arguments, or anything of the sort. But I'd disappoint her and, if I'm being honest, I'm not quite ready to do that any more than I already have.
So for now, it's easiest to just be quiet, to let her remarks about future husbands and vague one-sided conversations about the benefits of being closeted go by uncontested. Eventually, I'll have to tell her; it's not a conversation we can avoid forever. But there is no time line, no set list of future events. For the moment, things are okay as there are, and while I know I should claim that I'll take the initiative sometime soon and tackle the matter head on, for now all I can really say is that we'll all just have to wait and see.